Storybook: Will and Maya
by true-elven
Summary: Story complete! Based on ABC's Traveler. Begins two years before Drexler bombing. Will goes to Deer Harbor to work with Maya, who is forced to help him. Explores their romance, Will's life in New Haven, and other questions unanswered in the show.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **This story is not meant as a prequel to my other fan-fiction story, "Traveler Season Two," so please don't expect the characters or plots to follow the same (or even similar) lines as in that story.

**Chapter 1:**

**The Mission**

_Staten Island, New York_

_Twenty-three months before Drexler Museum bombing_

Today, his name was Daniel Jerome Taft. He carried a New York state driver's license attesting that he was twenty-three years old, stood five feet and eight inches tall, weighed one-hundred-and-forty pounds, and had brown hair and green eyes. Like a good citizen, he was listed as a registered organ donor.

He had been Daniel Taft before. He was glad to be him again: It beat who had been for the past eleven months.

The young man calling himself Daniel drove a rented, gun-metal gray Lexus sedan down a tree-lined street in an affluent, residential South Shore neighborhood. In two days, the nation would celebrate its independence; the impressive two- and three-story homes he passed sported American flags on their perfectly-appointed porches and professionally-manicured lawns. With the heat of the day giving way to a pleasantly balmy evening, many middle-aged couples were out strolling the sidewalks, smoke could be seen rising from backyard barbecues, and school-age children played games of tag or whiffleball in view of their living room windows.

A far cry from the slick, gaudy world of Miami's South Beach, where Daniel (he had not been called Daniel then, but J.C.) had spent the better part of the last year amongst drug dealers, gun runners and crack addicts.

Aware that he was running a little late – his flight from Paris to LaGuardia had been delayed by thirty minutes – Daniel eased the Lexus into a familiar driveway at the end of the block. Killing the engine, he grabbed a leather Coach messenger bag and matching suitcase out of the passenger's seat before hurrying up the stone porch steps.

He took a moment to compose himself before ringing the bell, a moment to recall Daniel Taft's memories, attitude, movements. Switching identities could be tricky, especially after being on a deep-cover mission for as long as he had been. Two weeks of lounging in a luxury hotel suite in Paris had hardly given him time to decompress, to snap out of being the tough-talking, dope-dealing J.C.

_You can't afford to make mistakes here, so get it together_. _Ready – set – go…_

Moments later, Sela Langdon greeted the young man with a warm, "Daniel! How good to see you again!" and a motherly hug. Daniel kissed the pretty, middle-aged brunette chastely on the cheek as she ushered him into a lovely foyer paneled in cherry-stained oak.

"Come with me, I'm working on dinner," Sela commanded, leading him down a short hallway alongside the staircase into a sunny, ultra-modern kitchen. For someone who was just cooking supper for her family, Daniel noted, Sela looked quite stylish in a coral-colored linen pants suit; come to think of it, he couldn't remember ever seeing his handler's wife in anything other than the finest clothes, although she made the glamour look effortless.

"Joseph should be home any minute. I know he was expecting you. How was Paris?"

"Hot," Daniel admitted. Dropping his bags in the hall, he settled onto a tall bar stool at the island in the center of the kitchen. Sela moved around him, taking down pots and pans and tossing ingredients into them seemingly at random. "But it was nice to get away for a couple of weeks."

"Did you take anybody special?"

Daniel shook his head, remembering to blush a little. Daniel Taft was rather shy, particularly where women were involved. "Nope. Just me and a good book and a lot of wine."

"Oh, you can't visit that city alone – Paris is for lovers," Sela remarked wistfully. "Joseph and I honeymooned there. It was amazing. A million years ago now, and we keep meaning to go back, but…" She shrugged her slender shoulders, as if to say, _What can you do?_

"Are you thirsty?" Sela inquired, switching topics with the careless rapidity Daniel quite liked about her.

"Parched."

"Good, because I need a beer." Sela opened the stainless steel refrigerator, popped the top on two bottles of Guinness and slid one across the wooden tabletop to him. "I suppose Joseph hasn't had the chance to tell you that Darian got caught smoking in the girls' room at school. I mean, for Christ's sake, she's fifteen, like she isn't going to rebel, you know? But the principal's making it out to be a criminal offense, practically. I spent three hours – _three hours, _can you believe that? – in a parent-teacher conference today."

Sela shook her dark hair back from her face, grimacing. "By the end of it, I needed a cigarette so bad I was about ready to light the guidance counselor and smoke her."

Daniel laughed, a throaty, heartfelt laugh. He remembered now why he enjoyed being Daniel Taft so much: He was able to spend time with interesting, sophisticated people like Sela and her husband, people who didn't stumble around in a perpetually drug-induced haze searching for their next hit or planning their next coke deal.

"What's going on down here?" a male voice boomed from the hallway. Turning, Daniel watched a tall, white-haired man in an expensive camel-colored suit cross the room to kiss his wife full on the lips. Releasing her, he demanded with mock severity, "Cheating on me with a younger man, are you, my sweet?"

"Well, can you blame me? Just look at what a handsome devil he is." Sela winked at Daniel as she moved to check on the simmering pots lining the stove.

Daniel stood and shook hands with Joseph Langdon, glad as always to see his primary contact within Hometown. Daniel had met the Langdons for the first time when he completed his initial training three and a half years ago; they had invited him into their home, treated him like a second son for three months while he finished the second, less arduous phase of becoming an operative. He had thought them the most amazing couple then, and he still did. The children of wealthy, influential parents, they had grown up in the same Manhattan circles and had been together since Joseph's freshman year at Princeton.

The Langdons lived the sort of life Daniel had always coveted: Joseph, a consultant for Fallbrook Dunn who worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security (and before that, the FBI), held a law degree from Harvard; Sela operated a successful, high-end catering business and looked after the couple's two children, Darian and Samuel. They owned a gorgeous house, wore designer clothes, drove expensive cars and traveled to exotic places.

Things like that – the right house, the right clothes, the right cars – mattered to Daniel. He didn't so much crave the comfort or the luxury; he was actually more comfortable in an old pair of jeans than in Armani, and he certainly didn't balk at physical discomfort, dirt, or hard work. He wasn't "soft," as his father would have said.

No, what Daniel desired weren't fine, expensive things in and of themselves; he desired the _status_ that came from owning the right vehicle and living in the right neighborhoods and knowing the right people. He supposed that desire stemmed from spending his adolescence as the scholarship kid at an elite East Coast prep school (his name had not been Daniel then, either), where everyone around him enjoyed seemingly limitless wealth while Daniel's father worked diligently to keep them in a middle-class tax bracket.

Someday, Daniel knew, if he did his job well and proved his worth to those who mattered, he could have a life not unlike Joseph's. Then it wouldn't matter that he didn't come from quite so privileged a background.

"I was just telling Daniel about the trouble Darian's having at school," Sela started to inform her husband, but at that moment, the backdoor burst open and two squabbling siblings exploded onto the scene.

"Mom, Darian slapped me!" a wiry, dark-haired boy of thirteen shouted.

Directly behind him, a stick-thin girl who strongly resembled Sela broke in, "He was going through my purse, the little prick – "

"Hey!" Joseph's stern voice brought instant silence to the kitchen. Daniel hid a smile behind his hand; another thing he loved about staying with the Langdons was that Darian and her little brother always provided a good deal of excitement. "Language, young lady. You're in enough trouble as it is."

Darian stuck her lower lip out in a pout. Daniel observed that in the year since he had last seen her, Joseph's fifteen-year-old daughter had transformed from a quiet, somewhat reclusive kid to a sullen, angry, punk-rocker-wannabe: Her fingernails were painted black, her dark hair hung lank around her shoulders, and her almost emaciated frame was swathed in ripped black jeans and a Marilyn Manson tee-shirt.

Sam looked the same as ever – scrawny and mischievous. Of the two, Daniel had always preferred Sam.

"Darian, you do not hit your brother," Sela admonished calmly, appearing completely unperturbed by the spat. She was sprinkling paprika into a boiling pot of pasta; the aromas made Daniel's mouth water. "And Sam, you respect your sister's privacy."

"I was looking for cigarettes," Sam piped up devilishly, earning him a hard kick in the ankle from his sister.

"Well, you'll probably find some." Sela winked at Daniel across the kitchen. "Now, where are your manners, you two? You haven't even said 'hello' to our guest."

Sam's whole face lit up when he spotted Daniel. "You're back!" he cried, rushing forward as if he meant to hug the young man, yet stopping short with a kind of awkward shrug. They gave one another high-five instead. "When'd you get here?"

"About ten minutes ago," Daniel answered. "How you been, Sam my man? How's football?"

"I've been practicing. I think I can make the eighth-grade team, since I played first string last year when I was just a seventh-grader. I think I'll go out for tackle," Sam recounted, speaking rapidly in a way that reminded Daniel sharply of Sela. The boy looked to his father, his expression hopeful. "After supper, is it okay if Daniel helps me with passing?"

Joseph grinned at Daniel, as if to say, _See what you're in for? _"We'll see, buddy," he replied equivocally. "Daniel and I have some work to do."

Turning to his daughter, Joseph instructed firmly, "Darian, say hello to Daniel."

"Hello Daniel," the girl parroted tonelessly, already on her way out of the room. Daniel thought he saw a high spot of color on her cheeks as she marched away, and he hoped he wasn't going to become the object of a teenage crush.

Joseph rolled his eyes. "I thought about grounding her until she's eighteen just so we don't have to deal with this for another three years," he confessed, eliciting a laugh from both his wife and his guest. "Sela, honey, if it's going to be a few minutes…?"

Waving them off, Sela said, "You two go do your thing. I'll call you when it's ready. Sam," she commanded her son, "take Daniel's bags up to the guest room, would you? And _do not snoop, _young man, I mean it."

Quickly, Daniel mentally rifled through the contents of his bags, just in case Sam's curiosity got the better of him. He could think of nothing suspicious or unusual in either of them, nothing to indicate that he was anyone other than Daniel Taft, a junior associate at Fallbrook Dunn, the crisis management company Joseph consulted for.

How much of the truth Sela knew, Daniel reflected as he followed Joseph through the living room and into his private study, he had never been sure. She made an excellent show of buying the fiction that her husband was a lawyer whose clients included high-ranking government officials, wealthy private citizens, and powerful corporations. Yet it was not lost on Daniel that Sela never questioned her husband's activities, never seemed to find it odd that an "associate" like Daniel would disappear for months at a time, only to pop back into their lives for a few days here and there. Such a lack of interest from a clever woman who was obviously devoted to her husband suggested to Daniel that Sela knew exactly what Joseph did.

_Just another way their lives are perfect, I guess – she knows who he is and loves him anyway…_

"Have a seat," Joseph instructed Daniel cordially, closing the study door behind them. As always, Daniel was impressed by Joseph's home office: Built-in bookcases, filled to capacity with legal volumes and political science texts, lined three of the four walls (the fourth boasted two large windows overlooking the Langdons' beautiful backyard), a massive mahogany desk dominated the center of the room, an authentic Turkish carpet covered a large section of the hardwood floor, and, in front of the windows, an arrangement of fan-backed leather chairs provided a space for comfortably doing business. It was into these chairs that Daniel and Joseph settled themselves, Daniel quickly polishing off the rest of his beer and setting the bottle aside.

"I'm surprised you didn't stay in Paris longer," Joseph began, resting one ankle on his knee and studying Daniel carefully.

Submitting to the scrutiny – it was part of the debrief, to ensure that his loyalties hadn't changed during the deep cover op, which happened sometimes – Daniel answered honestly, "I'd rather be working than sight-seeing."

"Yes, I understand that. But you also know the time to reorient yourself is necessary after so long undercover."

Daniel nodded, hoping he wasn't in for a lengthy lesson on the evils of jumping from one identity to the next without allowing himself time to adjust in between. Whenever Joseph delivered that lecture, Daniel always wanted to say, _"Yeah, but it's not like I'm 'me' in between missions, is it? I go back to being this identity they gave me when I joined Hometown – this Daniel Taft – not who I was before…"_

Of course, he never did. For one thing, he respected Joseph too much to challenge him. For another, Daniel understood enough about the people he worked for to know that, for all of his outward charm and grace, Joseph Langdon was a dangerous man, not someone to be trifled with.

"Well, anyway, I guess you did take two weeks. And if I remember Paris in the summer, that was probably plenty of time," Joseph relented.

Daniel released a small sigh of relief, thankful that he wasn't going to be ordered to resume his vacation. He didn't know how much more sitting at outdoor cafes sipping espresso and nibbling croissants he could have taken before he lost his mind from the boredom – Daniel was a man of action.

"I have to tell you, Daniel, the Partners were very, very impressed by your work in Miami."

Pride swelled inside the young man. He never tired of hearing that his accomplishments had come to the attention of the people with the real power – the Partners. He had no idea who they were beyond the extremely vague category of "high-ranking government officials," but he knew they had conceived of, developed, and oversaw Hometown, the top-secret domestic espionage project Daniel had joined four years earlier. Nothing happened in Hometown that they didn't know about; nothing was done without their approval.

_Which is why I have to be spot-on today, if I'm going to get what I want from Joseph and from them…_

"I just received your final report this morning," Joseph motioned vaguely toward his cluttered desk, "but why don't you hit the high points for me?"

This, too, was part of the debrief. Daniel knew that their conversation was being recorded. Later, it would be played for the Partners, and (after being carefully edited if necessary) Congressional security councils, who would need to know at least a little bit about his mission in order for the Partners to get what they wanted. Whatever that was.

Daniel was also aware that, somewhere in the room, a hidden camera was recording his every movement. That tape would be subjected to computer and human analysis to determine if his body language, heart rhythm, optical responses, speech patterns or tone of voice indicated that he was, at any time, attempting to deceive his superiors.

Feeling absolutely relaxed because he had absolutely nothing to hide, Daniel launched into a recap of the previous eleven months.

"Last August, I was tasked to infiltrate a small narcotics ring in Florida with potential ties to Islamic extremist groups," he began. "As part of the operation, I was sent to a minimum security prison in Florida under the alias Jonathan Charles Moore, nickname 'J.C.' My cover was that I was in for a first-offense narcotics charge – I'd been caught selling a small amount of marijuana to spring-breakers in Orlando. It was arranged for me to be cellmates with a man named Jarrod Austin, the leader of the ring, which sold primarily cocaine and heroine in South Beach.

"I befriended Austin, as directed, and when we were released in the same week late that October, I accompanied him to South Beach. At that point, I had earned his trust enough to insinuate myself into his criminal organization. It was pretty obviously small-time stuff – I mean, these guys were their own biggest clients," Daniel noted, drawing a knowing smile from Joseph. "But they had some connections that seemed to be bigger than what they realized.

"There were these guys from Colombia especially," Daniel recalled. In his mind's eye, he saw six heavily-tattooed South American men sitting around the filthy apartment where "J.C." and Austin had lived, smoking dope and telling war stories. "They were running drugs across the Mexican border and, it turned out, also bringing in illegal automatic weapons to sell in the U.S. They basically thought Austin was a joke, but he had done some messengering for them until he got himself arrested selling coke.

"Austin really talked it up, like he was integral to their operation, but from what I could tell, his involvement with the gun-running was very marginal, really simple stuff any idiot could've done. The only interesting part was that it had put him in contact with an Islamic extremist group operating here in the U.S. Everything Austin told me about these people made me think they were looking to get their hands on some serious firepower.

"It didn't take much persuading for Austin to agree to start working more closely with the Colombians. He's a real small-time hood, Austin," Daniel observed, making no attempt to hide his disgust. Every time he pictured the pasty-skinned, greasy-haired punk he had been forced to treat as his best friend, his skin crawled and he experienced an overwhelming urge to shower. "You know the type, always looking to be the baddest bad-ass on the block even though he couldn't find his, uh, his gun with both hands."

Joseph grinned. "Yes, I think I know the type. Go on."

Daniel knew Joseph was pleased with his performance thus far: He sounded very natural, very relaxed, which was what the Partners would want – it was more convincing.

"So, like I said, Austin didn't need much persuasion," Daniel resumed his narrative. "I just sort of pointed him in the right direction, and by January, he was helping to organize arms deals. The plan was pretty simple: Some guys worked to bring shipments of guns out of Mexico into Texas, and then Austin arranged to have the weapons transported to South Beach, where we sold them out of a club owned by one of the Colombians, a guy named Pedro Fernandez."

Joseph held up a hand to stop Daniel. "When you say 'persuasion' – and I just want to be clear here – did you at any time coerce or use the threat of physical violence to compel Mr. Austin to engage in these criminal activities?"

A smile played at the corners of Daniel's mouth, though his voice remained perfectly smooth. _It's all for show – got to say what the good senators want to hear…_

"Absolutely not," he responded emphatically, which was the truth. "I suggested to Austin that if he were to work more closely with Fernandez's gang, we could make a lot of money and hold a lot more power in South Beach. That was basically all it took – like I said, the greatest dream of his little junkie heart was to be a bad-ass."

Settling back into his chair, Joseph nodded his approval. "Very good, thank you. Please, go on."

Coming to the end of his tale, Daniel spoke more quickly, like someone who didn't relish what was coming next. "Once Austin got involved with Fernandez, he moved up the ladder pretty quickly. By May he was pretty much in charge of most of the arms deals, even contacting buyers once we got the guns into Florida. I know, because he treated me like his second-in-command, so I helped him with most of it.

"Four weeks ago I received my final directive," Daniel proceeded. He was careful to pitch his voice so that he sounded somber, disheartened by all that he had seen. "At that time, I had reported back to my superiors, such as yourself, that the Colombian organization Austin was affiliated with had managed to bring a shipment of RPGs – uh, sorry, that's rocket-propelled grenades – across the border into Texas, and that Austin intended to sell these to a representative from the Islamic extremist group. The deal was supposed to take place at Fernandez's club in a week's time. My orders were to ensure that we had a case against Austin: I was to record the transaction on video and to put a trace on the wire transfer, so tech ops could follow the extremist group's money back to the source of their financing."

"And did you do that?" Joseph prompted.

"Yes, I did," Daniel recounted matter-of-factly. "I basically had unlimited access to Fernandez's club, so I hid a camera in the VIP room, where these kinds of deals always went down, and set it up to relay to a remote server, where it could be collected as evidence. That took care of getting the transaction on video.

"Tracing the money was a bit more complicated. I was able to convince Austin to let me be the one to check that the money had been transferred to Fernandez's account before we handed over the RPGs. Like I said, it was kind of tricky because I had to insert the tracer into the issuing account while the deal was going down, pretty much under Austin's nose, but I was able to do so without either party – Austin or the extremist group – suspecting anything."

"And then?"

"And then," Daniel shrugged his shoulders expansively, "I walked away, like I was instructed, and let the FBI handle the rest. I got on a plane to Paris and read about the arrest of some dangerous arms dealers in Florida along with the rest of France in _Le Monde_ the next day."

His story finished, Daniel leaned back in his chair, waiting for Joseph to decide whether or not he had been sufficiently debriefed.

Just because his superiors were using this meeting partially to determine if Daniel was attempting to deceive _them_ did not mean they were interested in hearing the whole truth, of that Daniel was acutely aware. The truth, if that was what he had been asked to tell, would have been much less straight-forward than the tale he had spun. Oh, Jarrod Austin was a worthless crack-head, no doubt about that; he featured himself the King of South Beach, when in reality, he was just one of perhaps four dozen coke dealers in the city who were so insignificant they couldn't even attract the attention of the DEA or Miami-Dade PD. When Daniel (J.C. at the time) had met Austin in prison, it had not been he who befriended Austin – it had been Austin who was drawn to someone obviously tougher, stronger, and more capable than he was.

As he had told Joseph, Daniel had not forced Austin to do anything. But if he hadn't been there pulling the strings, Daniel knew the two-bit gangster would never have stepped into the big leagues with people like Fernandez and his associates in the Colombian drug cartel. In fact, Daniel had discreetly done most of the work (Austin being too strung out on his own product to win the trust and respect of men like Fernandez) while publicly proclaiming Austin the mastermind of all their plans. If Austin had been puzzled by this loyalty from someone who could easily have ousted him and taken over his "organization," as Daniel disparagingly thought of the pathetic assortment of junkies in Austin's employ, he had been much too happy about being seen as the next Al Capone to question "J.C."'s motives too thoroughly.

What made the situation so pitiful, Daniel thought, was that Austin had been so eager to play the master criminal that painting him as such has been laughably easy.

_And how is it protecting my country to serve some stupid dope-fiend up as a traitor and terrorist?_

Immediately, Daniel dismissed the question. His father had taught him the importance of following orders, of respecting the chain of the command: Decisions were made by people at the top, people with the necessary information and knowledge to make those decisions, and orders were carried out by those on down the ladder, those who did not need to know the reasoning behind the decisions. The Partners understood why Austin's depiction as an American terrorist was necessary. That sufficed for Daniel.

Of course, some part of him sympathized with Austin – the guy was a waste of space, but still, he hadn't been much of a menace to anyone until "J.C." had come along and steered him into gun-running. Nevertheless, Daniel reasoned, he couldn't pretend that Austin had been opposed to engaging in more and more serious criminal activities, including selling military-grade weapons to terrorists. It wasn't like J.C. had put a gun to Austin's head and forced him to throw in with Colombian drug lords and South American arms dealers; Austin had willingly followed where his tougher, stronger friend led.

Waiting patiently for Joseph to break the long silence, Daniel admitted to himself that he didn't actually need to rationalize his behavior. More than that – he wasn't even terribly interested in the greater purpose of his mission. He accepted that one existed because he was a patriot, first and foremost, like his father. Oh, Daniel wasn't naïve enough to believe the Partners' motives were purely altruistic, yet he did believe that mixed in with their desire for personal gain was a vision for the country that would ultimately be for the greater good.

Most of the time, however, Daniel was content not knowing what that vision might be because he kept his eyes on the prize: the big house, the nice cars, the expensive clothes, the Christmas-card family. Daniel had no intention of being an operative for the rest of his life. The real wealth and power was held by men like Joseph and those even higher up than him, men who were on the inside, not confined to the edges. In their business, Daniel had accepted with few pangs of conscience, success only came to those who were willing to make moral compromises without expecting explanations.

Finally, Joseph declared, "Well, I think that covers it. You did excellent work, Daniel. The country appreciates it."

The debrief over, Daniel allowed himself to relax. Somewhere, he knew, recording devices were turning off; analysts were turning away from monitors; interpretations of his report were being formed. Confident that he had done his job well, Daniel simply put the Miami mission out of his mind. He had other things to focus on now, in the short time left before Sela called them away to dinner.

"I spoke to Alex a few days ago," he began conversationally, as Joseph crossed to his desk and rummaged around in the bottom drawer. "She says hi, by the way."

Coming up with two tumblers and a bottle of Scotch, Joseph smiled fondly. "Good ole Alex. I miss her. Did she say how she's liking her new assignment?"

"No, she was kind of evasive about that," Daniel admitted. "I got the feeling she wasn't thrilled with it, though. Thanks," he added, accepting the glass from Joseph and sipping at the smooth amber liquid.

Joseph arranged his long limbs into his chair again, self-consciously tugging his suit jacket around the pot-belly that he had, Daniel noticed, recently gained. "So what did you and Alex talk about?" the older man inquired, as if sensing that Daniel hadn't brought up his former mentor, the woman who had steered him through his first phase of Hometown training, for nothing.

_Here we go, time to play again…_

Choosing his words carefully, Daniel answered, "She wanted to tell me about an operation that's in the works. A deep cover op in New Haven." He paused, waiting for a reaction, but Joseph's expression was unreadable, a placid mask. "She thought it sounded like something I'd be good at."

"Well." Joseph swallowed a swig of the top-shelf liquor, considering. "I'll admit, I did think about you when the Partners outlined the New Haven assignment, but…You're just coming off a long mission, Daniel. I'm not sure it's a good idea for you to move right into another operation that could require as much as a two-year commitment."

Daniel had anticipated this argument. On the flight from Paris to New York, he had meticulously mapped out every objection Joseph would raise as well as every counterargument he would present. Most important to his success in this instance, Daniel knew, was not seeming overeager. If he appeared to want the assignment too badly, Joseph would refuse to let him have it – Hometown operatives had to be detached, totally objective, about their operations.

The challenge Daniel faced was persuading Joseph that he was ready to take on another assignment without letting on that it was this mission in particular he really wanted.

So Daniel affected an air of nonchalance that not even the best analyst would have spotted as anything other than genuine. "I hear you. I guess I just never got into the Miami operation that deeply. It wasn't like I had to put a lot of work into my cover when I was with Austin and his fellow idiots – they were all too stoned to know who they were half the time, let alone to give a shit who I was. The only time I really had to stay on my toes was around Fernandez. He was suspicious of everybody, understandably."

Joseph seemed to be softening a little. "I suppose that's true. As far as deep covers go, this mission wasn't quite so involved."

_So, what'd ya say, send me off to Yale and let me live the exciting life of a grad student for a couple of years?_

"Ah, Daniel, I just…I don't know." Joseph rubbed his eyes, looking rather weary. Daniel forced himself to be silent, to let his handler think. "This would be a lot different than the two missions you've done so far. You wouldn't be portraying a criminal, someone with a reason to hide his past. Your life would have to be an open book. Trust me, that's a tall order when the person you're pretending to be doesn't actually exist."

Sipping his Scotch, Daniel pretended to turn Joseph's words over in his mind. Actually, he had expected this argument as well; he was a good enough operative to have studied Joseph Langdon as carefully as Joseph Langdon had studied him. Anticipating the older man's objections had been easy.

At length, Daniel replied, with the tone of someone making an important confession, "You want to know the truth, Joseph? I'd sort of like the change of pace. I know it'll be different, and difficult, and all of that. But I'm getting pretty sick of spending day in and day out with murderers and dope dealers and junkies. If I have to pretend to be somebody else, Joe College doesn't sound so bad, you know what I mean?"

Daniel watched his words sink in. Privately, he was on pins and needles. Outwardly, he was totally calm, seemingly without a personal stake in the matter besides a desire to receive a more desirable assignment than his previous two.

"You'd have to create your cover from the ground up," Joseph warned. Daniel felt like cheering as he watched his handler warm to the idea, though he arranged his face into a serious, attentive expression. "Develop a whole back-story for yourself – a family, a hometown, girlfriends, schools. And you would really have to enroll at Yale. We would cover the expenses, of course," Joseph went on, "and your records would all be handled by us, not by the school, because there's too many possibilities of leaving behind a trail otherwise. But still, you would really have to live like a graduate student: go to class, do homework, all that stuff."

"You wanna see my transcripts?" Daniel joked. "I did pretty well in school, Joseph. I think I could handle Yale. It's not as bad as Harvard, right?"

Grinning, the Harvard alum seconded, "That's right. And I know you're more than intelligent enough to do graduate work, Daniel. I'm just saying the operation would be unlike anything you've done before."

"I'd never been in prison before, either, and I managed that okay," Daniel pointed out.

Joseph sighed. "Yes, and I can't imagine how difficult that was, giving up your freedom even for a couple of months and living in a cage…But still, I'm telling you, the New Haven op will be an entirely new ballgame. It'll be much more involved, in ways I can't even describe to you. For one thing, you would have to be much more intimate with your marks – and these people aren't dope dealers and murderers, as you pointed out. They'll be people you could probably see yourself really becoming friends with."

Daniel didn't respond. Here was an argument he hadn't expected – that Joseph would be worried about Daniel, who had shown himself time and time again to be capable of complete emotional detachment, getting too close to his targets, getting too enamored of a fictional persona.

Something, something Joseph hadn't yet revealed, was holding him back, was causing him to have these doubts. Daniel felt it in his gut. He had learned to listen to those instincts.

"This is a very, very important operation, Daniel," Joseph finally admitted, staring down into his glass of Scotch. "The Partners have made it top priority. Your work up to this point has been excellent – flawless, I should say. But your record notwithstanding," he went on, meeting Daniel's gaze steadily, "I don't know how they would feel about assigning an operative with only two years' undercover experience to something of this…magnitude."

Daniel stared unflinchingly back. "You know my work – and my limits – better than probably anyone, except maybe Alex. So what do you think, Joseph? Do you think I can do it?"

"I suppose," Joseph answered slowly, "that before I go out on a limb here for you with the Partners and recommend that they hand this mission over to an operative with, relatively speaking, very little experience, I'd like to know why you're so determined to take this on. And I suppose," he added pointedly, "that I'd like some reassurance that your interest in this assignment doesn't have anything to do with Carlton Fog."

_So he knows about my father. I should have expected that._

When circumstances changed unexpectedly, Daniel's training had taught him to improvise. In this instance, an honest answer seemed like his best chance of getting what he wanted.

"Of course it does." Daniel registered the surprise on Joseph's face and knew he had made the right decision by owning up to his ulterior motives.

At the same time, however, Daniel shrugged, his demeanor suggesting that, in the end, the admission mattered little to him. "I take it Director Freed's told you about my dad, about how Carlton Fog may have had a hand in what happened to him. When Alex told me Fog's oldest son is one of the targets, of course it interested me.

"But that's not the point, Joseph." Daniel leaned forward. He hoped his intensity would cover the fact that he was now moving away from total honesty and back into half-truths, where he typically resided. "The point is, like you said – like Alex said – this is a big deal. Maybe the biggest thing Hometown has undertaken so far. I want in on that, Joseph. You've gotta know I want bigger things than to be an operative for the rest of my life. If I do this, and I do it right, the Partners are going to see that I'm more than just somebody who's good at 'cultivating assets'."

They both smiled at Daniel's sardonic use of the accepted phraseology for what essentially boiled down to framing (or very nearly so) innocent people for acts of terrorism.

Daniel was skilled enough at reading people to recognize that he had his handler on the ropes. He went in for the kill, pouring on the Daniel Taft earnestness as thickly as he dared.

"Joseph, two years ago you helped me move up from being an assassin to being an undercover agent. You gave me the assignment in Oklahoma as a way to prove myself to the Partners, a way to show them that I could handle deep cover ops. Now I'm asking you to help me again. Help me show them how valuable I really can be to this organization. Please."

"Okay, okay." Joseph shook his head and downed the last of his Scotch.

_Yes! I am good…_

Wagging his finger at Daniel's ear-to-ear grin, Joseph cautioned, "Don't start celebrating just yet, my boy. I still have to run it by Freed, don't forget. And he knows your history with Fog. He may say no."

If Joseph really thought that, Daniel mused, he didn't know Jack Freed very well: Personal vendettas were a way of life for that man. The promise of revenge was how Freed had recruited the young man now known as Daniel into Hometown in the first place. In all probability, Freed was already considering Daniel for this op because of, not in spite of, his reasons for wanting to make Carlton Fog suffer.

"Assuming that Freed agrees," Joseph went on, "you'll be leaving in the next few days to meet with one of our assets who'll help you develop your cover. I know you haven't done that before – you've always come up with your own covers, and you've done an excellent job of it – but we can't take any chances this time. Your story has to check out, no matter who looks into it, so you're going to have to have significant, on-going help."

Both men stood up as Sela's light, even footsteps approached the door. "That's fine with me," Daniel hurried to say. He didn't care how complicated the mission was, he was just thankful to have it – both for the opportunity to strike out at Carlton Fog and for the chance to advance his own career.

"Thanks, Joseph," Daniel said, meaning it. He extended his hand, clasping Joseph's tightly. "I know you're taking a chance for me here. I won't let you down."

Sela knocked softly on the door. "Dinner's ready," she called from the other side.

"Coming, my sweet," Joseph called back. To Daniel, he said solemnly, "It's not me you have to worry about letting down, Daniel. It's the Partners. Remember this: They're going to be watching this operation very closely. Now would not be the time to start making mistakes."

Daniel nodded to show that he understood. Inside, however, he was convinced Joseph's concern was for naught. In four years, Daniel had not missed a step. He wasn't about to get sloppy now, when everything he had worked so hard for was finally coming together.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

"**The Cover"**

_Deer Harbor, Maine_

_Twenty-three months before Drexler Museum bombing_

Time was fickle. That was the best explanation Maya Sanders could come up with for why, when she was anxiously awaiting something, the minutes seemed to crawl by, and when she was dreading something (like today), the hours flew past. It seemed like just moments before she had unlocked her shop, "Have Books, Will Travel," and prepared for what would, with the Independence Day parade taking place that morning, likely be a busy day. Now, she was switching off lights and closing out the cash register, readying herself to drive to the Deer Harbor train station to collect her…

What was she supposed to call this guy, anyway? Her "charge"? Her "guest"?

Maya's hands were shaking as she slipped a rubber-band around a stack of twenty-dollar bills and tucked the money into a bank envelope for the night deposit. She ordered herself to calm down. Granted, the situation she was in probably warranted some hysterics, but the more in control she was, the better able she would be to handle whatever happened.

For the past three years, Maya had been waiting for the call that had finally come only the day before. Sometimes, she had been able to convince herself that it never would. Sometimes she had nearly persuaded herself that whatever task the mysterious people who had bailed her out of jail (where she wouldn't have been except for her junkie brother, she reflected darkly) had intended her for had fallen through. In her heart, though, Maya knew that was a pipe dream: The devil always collected on his debts.

The man who had phoned, a John Ellington, had told her merely that she would be spending the next four weeks assisting an undercover agent in creating his cover story. Maya had no idea what that meant or why she should have been qualified to do it. Since Ellington did not strike her as the type to entertain questions, however, she had simply agreed to pick the agent, one Daniel Taft, up the next evening from the six o'clock train.

Which she was going to be late for if she didn't get a move on.

Just as Maya stuffed the bank envelope into her khaki-colored messenger bag, the bell above her shop's door clanged to announce the arrival of a late customer. Maya gritted her teeth. Why was it that so many people visiting a bookstore couldn't seem to _read_? The door might have been unlocked, but the sign in the window still clearly stated 'closed.'

"I'm sorry, I'm locking up for the day," she said, smoothing the irritation out of her voice. A small business owner in a small town could not afford to offend her clientele, no matter how irritating they were. "We open again at nine – "

"Are you Maya Sanders?"

She looked up from locking the safe behind the cash register, surprised, to find herself being studied by a handsome, sandy-haired young man. The way he was looking at her suggested to Maya that she should have known who he was, yet for the life of her, she couldn't place him.

"Yes," she answered hesitantly, suddenly feeling quite isolated inside the empty store. Who was this man, and what did he want?

He took a tentative step forward. "I'm Daniel Taft."

Maya's first reaction was disbelief. To her mind, undercover operatives were not so young, probably no older than she was, or so clean-cut: In a charcoal-gray button-down and loose-fitting jeans, bare toes sticking out of leather sandals and an obviously expensive satchel slung over one shoulder, hair clipped short but still messy-looking, skin tanned caramel-brown, the young man looked more like a Gap advertisement than a government spy.

Her second reaction was suspicion. She had been instructed to meet Daniel Taft at the train station, not her store. Why would he change the plan?

"I thought I was supposed to pick you up," she replied cautiously.

Seeming to understand her hesitation, the young man explained, "My train arrived a little ahead of schedule and I kind of wanted the walk. You can call Ellington if you want," he added. "He'll confirm who I am."

Maya decided not to admit to this stranger that she actually had no idea how to reach Ellington. In point of fact, she actually had no idea who the hell Ellington _was_. These people didn't exactly leave business cards, she had learned.

Instead, she opted to accept the young man's story because she couldn't think of any reason for him to lie.

"That's okay," she assured him. "I was just surprised, that's all."

An awkward silence settled over them. At least it was awkward for Maya; the man – Daniel Taft, though the name didn't seem to fit him – appeared perfectly at ease.

"So this is your store, huh?" He moved around the room, peering at the shelves, running his fingertips along the books' spines.

"Yeah, for five years now. My dad left it to me when he passed away."

Maya hugged her bag to her chest. She wished he would tell her what she was supposed to do. Just as she didn't want to admit that she didn't know how to contact Ellington, for some reason she felt stupid confessing that she had no clue what her role in all of this cloak-and-dagger madness was supposed to be.

"I like the name," Daniel commented politely, coming to a stop beside the counter.

Maya realized she was staring at him and blushed, quickly averting her gaze to the street beyond the window, where preparations for the annual July Fourth Barbecue in town square were well underway. "I know it's not the most original bookstore name," she replied, desperate to prevent another long silence, "but there's actually a story there. You see, when my dad was nineteen he bought this old beat-up van off this hippie who came through town, and it had this bumper sticker on it – 'Have books, will travel.' And Dad didn't bother to take it off. So a few days later he's driving up to Augusta and he picks up this really pretty girl who's hitchhiking, and she tells him that she could marry somebody who made that their motto. So he didn't tell her it wasn't his bumper sticker."

As her words trailed away, Maya wanted to kick herself. Why was she babbling on about some piece of family lore this man couldn't possibly care about? Why couldn't she be calm and collected, like he was?

To her relief, Daniel crooked a smile at her. "Lemme guess: The girl was your mom?"

His interest touched Maya. She felt herself relax the tiniest bit. Maybe this wouldn't be so awful after all, if he was a nice guy.

"Yup." She pointed over her shoulder at a framed photograph of her parents on their wedding day. "Thomas and Lorelie Sanders, the bookworm and the flower-child. Dad loved to tell that story, especially after Mom died."

"I'm sorry," Daniel said. "About your parents, I mean." He looked and sounded sincere.

"Thanks." Maya shifted her feet self-consciously, less nervous but still unsteady under his cool, direct gaze. "So, um, I'm all finished here, if you want to go on out to the house…?"

Daniel nodded. For the first time, she noticed that he looked tired and wondered how far he had traveled today. "That'd be great. You need me to get that?" He held out his hand for the bulky messenger bag.

_Cute and considerate. I have to say, I didn't expect either of those things…_

Maya lived in the house she had grown up in – another part of her inheritance from her father, who had lost his two-year battle with leukemia when she was eighteen. Located ten miles outside of town, it was a modest, two-storey, four-bedroom house with a large front porch (complete with wooden swing) and a small, unfinished basement. She hadn't been able to do much to the house since her father's death, and it was certainly in need of some repairs – white paint was peeling off the front in little curly-ques, the porch steps were starting to rot, the roof needed replacing. Since it was all Maya could do to keep up with the mortgage, property taxes and utilities, however, she couldn't afford to take out the necessary home improvement loans to fix the place up.

The house's best feature, in Maya's opinion, was the small, man-made lake it was situated on. Her father had loved to fish and her mother had loved to swim, so the lake had played a pivotal role in their lives, especially during the warm summer months. Not long before her mother had died, Maya's father had built a short walkway out from the shore, where the little family had spent hours sitting together with their toes and fishing lines dangling in the water. The lake represented for Maya stability and safety: Whenever her troubles threatened to overwhelm her, she would often go out to the lake alone, to stare at the water and think of happier times.

As they wound through the curving country lanes leading away from Deer Harbor, Daniel seemed absorbed in staring at the small houses and narrow lanes they passed. Maya almost hated to disturb him, he looked so deep in thought, but her anxiety over what, exactly, was being asked of her finally prompted her to speak.

"So," she began, licking her suddenly-dry lips, "I, uh, I'm not…That is…I'm not sure what sort of help you need from me." She glanced at him, noting that he didn't appear phased by this admission. "I've never actually done this before."

"I was briefed on your situation."

Although his tone was perfectly even, Maya found herself slightly annoyed by his words. Her "situation"? What a convenient way of referring to the high-jacking of her life his employers had performed.

"In a few weeks, I'll be undertaking what we call a 'deep cover operation,'" Daniel continued. Maya put aside her irritation and listened closely. "Basically, I'm going to be pretending to be someone I'm not – a graduate student in chemical engineering at Yale, to be specific. To pull that off, I need a back-story, a history. So that's what I'm here to do: create a cover. And you're going to help me."

Maya's chest felt tight, like she had run a long way without pausing for breath. Hearing him explaining what a "deep cover operation" was in such a normal, almost casual tone struck her as horrifying.

Slowing down to make the turn-off into her driveway, she pressed, "That's the part I'm not clear on. How am I supposed to help you? I run a bookstore, for Christ's sake – I'm not a-a spy, or whatever you are."

Daniel arched an eyebrow at her. "Did I say something to offend you, Miss Sanders?"

"No." Maya realized her hands, like her voice, were shaking; again, she ordered herself to calm down. After parking her Jeep Wrangler (another hand-me-down from her father, one which had definitely seen better days) under the carport alongside the kitchen, she turned to him and blurted out, "Look, this isn't easy for me, okay? I don't have any idea what's going on, who you are, who you work for, what I'm helping to do – I don't have a clue about any of it. So I guess I'm a little nervous, and a little scared, and a lot confused."

A thick silence fell between them. Maya waited for Daniel to speak, to acknowledge that she had a right to feel as she did. Instead, he simply stared out the windshield at the gathering dusk, his serene expression suggesting he could remain that way, in silence, all night.

She suddenly got the impression that Daniel Taft could be an extremely frustrating person to deal with. He certainly seemed quite full of himself.

Blowing out a resigned sigh, Maya caved first. "I'm sorry for getting upset, all right? I don't mean to be."

She paused before adding, "And don't call me 'Miss Sanders.' It makes me feel like a second-grade teacher or something. Maya's fine."

"Okay. Maya."

Daniel shifted slightly in his seat so that he was facing her. Now that she was calm again, he seemed ready to talk. "Like I said, I understand your situation. I promise, your role in this is going to be very small – on-going, but small.

"What you have to understand," Daniel's blue-green eyes darkened, indicating how serious his next words were, "is that you don't want to be asking a lot of questions here. The less you know about who I am and what I do, or who I work for and what their goals are, the better it is for you. All right?"

_So bury your head in the sand like a good little ostrich, Maya, and just do as you're told…_

She supposed that was an unfair way of interpreting Daniel's words. In all likelihood, he was advising her for her own good. Nevertheless, she couldn't deny that basically being told to keep her nose out of his business rankled her.

In fact, the whole insane situation rankled her. The unfairness of it all struck Maya. She was not the one who had broken the law three years ago; she had never touched drugs, not once in her entire life, not after growing up watching her mother stick a needle in her arm every few hours until she finally managed to O.D. when Maya was twelve. Jericho was the one with the habit. Like a fool, she had trusted her older brother not to risk her future right along with his – up until the moment when the State Police had come waltzing in with a search warrant for the shop, the shop that was in Maya's name and legally her property, and had waltzed back out with several grams of crystal meth and a completely flabbergasted Maya in handcuffs.

She would have been convicted of narcotics possession, Maya was certain of it, if that lawyer hadn't arranged some sort of deal. She had been twenty years old and staring down prison time, a criminal record that would haunt her forever, the loss of her beloved business and their childhood home. The only thought in her mind had been that here, here was a way out: Sure she would face consequences later, sure she would have to pay the piper, but how bad could it be? Surely not as bad as what she had been facing.

She had been desperate, a stupid kid, and these people – whoever they were – had taken advantage of her. And here she was, three years later, still just as helpless, completely in their grasp. Only this time, her predicament was of her own doing, because kid or not she had accepted their bargain.

Maya was so absorbed in her angry thoughts that she nearly forgot they were sitting in the car until Daniel cleared his throat. "Shall we go in?" he asked, looking at her expectantly.

Maya noted again the circles under his eyes. Remembering that he was her guest (albeit uninvited), and realizing that he was probably anxious for a warm meal, a hot shower and a soft bed, she fell back on her impeccable manners to carry her through the difficult days head: If nothing else, she could at least be a polite hostess.

Leading the way into the kitchen through the side door, Maya apologized, "I have to warn you, the house isn't much, really. I've lived here by myself since Jericho got sent away and there's just some things I haven't been able to keep up with, like the roof leaking." She stopped by the staircase while Daniel stepped past her, taking in the living room and the front porch beyond the windows.

"Oh, by the way," she added, "I cleaned out my brother's old room for you – I hope you'll be comfortable enough there."

"I'm sure it'll be great, thanks."

Watching him study the room in much the same way he had her shop, it crossed Maya's mind that Daniel might be looking for escape routes in case they had to make a quick getaway. Then she chided herself for being dramatic: He was an undercover agent, not a fugitive. Quite possibly the most exciting thing that would happen during his stay would be that they would probably start to get on one another's nerves by the end of a month.

Maya showed Daniel up to his room, which was across the hall from hers. "You've got a private bath," she told him. He glanced around at the bare shelves (she had long since boxed up Jericho's books and posters, not wanting the reminder of her derelict brother whenever she walked by the room) before depositing his satchel on the bed. "I put some hangars in the closet, and the dresser's empty, so…I guess I'll go start dinner while you unpack."

"Listen." Daniel turned to her abruptly, causing Maya to halt in mid-step. He ran his hand through his hair, mussing it further; the action was so habitual, so obviously unaffected, that Maya found it instantly endearing – as well as a testament to how guarded this new person in her life really was, that he would hardly make a gesture without planning it.

"I know you've got a life here, and I've just been dropped in the middle of it. I'll do my best to stay out of your way. I don't mean to impose. So don't, you know, don't feel like you have to cook or do anything like that. I make a mad PB and J," he finished, grinning.

Surprised by his concern for her ability to maintain a normal life, Maya found that she was able to answer honestly, "I don't mind having you here, Daniel. I can't say I like the circumstances," she hastened to add. "But it's not an imposition to make you dinner or to put clean sheets on your bed."

"Thanks." He sounded genuinely grateful. "But like I said, don't feel like you need to do those things for me, if you don't want to."

_Cute, considerate, and let's add charming to that list…_

Thirty minutes later, as Maya was sprinkling raspberry vinaigrette dressing over a salad while the lemon-and-artichoke chicken finished baking, Daniel came down the steps, his bare toes making a pleasant plunk-slap noise on the hardwood. Accustomed to living alone, Maya hadn't expected to enjoy having company so much, especially not Daniel's sort of company. Yet she couldn't deny that a real smile crossed her face when he breezed into the kitchen, looking a little less put-together with his shirt partially unbuttoned over a white tee-shirt and his hair standing up in the back.

Maybe he didn't take himself quite as seriously as she had thought at first. Or maybe he'd picked up on the fact that she didn't go for "pretty boys," as her brother would have said, and was behaving accordingly…

_You'll drive yourself crazy thinking like that. Don't analyze everything he does._

"All unpacked?" she asked.

"Nearly. Need help?"

"You can set the table," Maya answered, and directed him to the plates and glasses. "I hope you like chicken." She had a sudden, horrible fear that he might be a vegetarian.

To her relief, Daniel answered, "Chicken sounds great. I'm starving."

While they worked, Daniel talked. He seemed more relaxed and open than he had on the drive home, more willing to offer up details about what exactly they would be doing for the next month.

"I need a background," he explained, arranging forks and knives carefully beside their plates. "Deer Harbor's going to be my hometown, that's the story. You've lived here your whole life, so I need you to introduce me to the town – tell me everything about it, all the little stuff that somebody couldn't find out from a guidebook or the Deer-Harbor-dot-com. Covers are made in the details," he noted, stepping back to admire his handiwork with the table.

Maya took the dish of chicken out of the oven and carried it to the table. "So this is less about any expertise I have and more about convenience," she remarked, somewhat testily. "Me helping you, I mean. It's not because I have any special qualifications, it's just that where I live is pretty out of the way, someplace most people haven't heard of, plus I don't have a lot of choice in the matter."

"Well," Daniel's face was the picture of innocence, "if you're going to take the glass half-empty view of things, I suppose…"

In spite of herself, Maya laughed. Daniel did, too; she decided instantly that she liked his laugh, a sort of low, throaty chuckle. And the dimple that appeared in his cheek made her positively weak in the knees.

Warning bells sounded in Maya's mind. She would not develop a crush on this man, no matter how cute, considerate, or charming he was. Beneath all of that, she could tell that he was a dangerous person, someone who had done and seen a lot of terrible things. Things she wanted no part of.

Daniel opened a bottle of chardonnay. After dinner (which he complimented twice, like a real gentleman), they lingered at the table over their wine. Maya's head was pleasantly buzzing by the end of her second glass, but she was sober enough to pepper him with questions about the coming month.

"So besides acting as town historian, what am I supposed to do here?"

"Help me get into character, really," Daniel answered. "I need to select an alias, and I'll ask you to call me by that once I do, so I can get used to it. It's a dead giveaway that you're not who you say you are if you don't answer when somebody says your name, by the way."

The wine had made Maya giggly. "Has that actually happened to you?"

Daniel shook his head. "No, not to me. My…Well, a friend of mine, another agent, it happened to her when she first started out, she told me. She had to abort the whole operation."

Maya automatically wondered if this "friend" was more than that. Which brought up other questions for her, ones she didn't dare ask: What sort of personal life did a spy lead? Was Daniel married or engaged or involved? Did his parents know what he really did?

Reminding herself that she would do well not to become too intrigued by this man, Maya switched her focus back to the business at hand. "So I help you 'get into character.' I'm not really sure how to do that."

"We'll work it out as we go along. The main thing will be that we come up with my background together, that you help me memorize it and keep everything straight, and that you don't let me mess up on any important details about this place."

Daniel polished off his wine before adding, "Oh, and I need you to quiz me on chemical engineering theory."

Maya blinked. "Are you serious?"

"Unfortunately." Daniel sounded as thrilled by the prospect as Maya felt. "I'm supposed to have a degree in this field already, right? I can't very well pull off being a grad student if I look like a total dumb-ass, so I get to spend the next month reading about how pesticides are made."

They washed the dishes together, letting the conversation wander from Maya's tasks and Daniel's assignment to books they had read, movies they had seen, music they liked. Daniel seemed very cultured, Maya observed, conversing easily about everything from Shakespeare to the symphony; at the same time, though, he wasn't pretentious, professing an obsession with John Grisham novels and a fascination with slasher movies like the _Halloween _series. By the time they had moved to the couch with cups of coffee, Maya realized she was becoming more at ease with this stranger by the minute.

She strongly suspected that putting her at ease had been Daniel's intention ever since joining her downstairs. He was certainly much more personable now than he had been in her store or on the drive home; it was like a switch had been flipped, like he had taken a little time to read her and was now working to soften her, to bring her around, to make her like him.

Maya didn't relish the idea of being manipulated, obviously. But since she couldn't exactly order him out of her house, she saw no reason why she shouldn't allow herself to be comfortable around him. Otherwise, it could be a very long four weeks.

She just wouldn't let her guard down too much. She wouldn't forget who he was, and who he worked for, and why he was there with her.

Sometime around ten, Daniel stretched and rubbed his eyes. He looked sleepy and seemed to be fighting a yawn.

"You must be worn out," Maya commented sympathetically, picking up their cups and heading out to the kitchen. "You didn't have to stay up so late talking to me. I guess I'm a little starved for conversation."

"I like talking to you." Daniel had followed her out to the kitchen and leaned against the counter, watching her rinse out their cups and place them in the dish drainer. His straight-forward answer made Maya blush, though not unpleasantly.

"I don't know why I'm so tired," he said around another yawn. "Jet-lag, I guess."

Maya regarded him curiously. "I thought you came in on the train."

"I did. But before that, I flew in from Paris about forty-eight hours ago. Vacation," Daniel clarified.

So he did lead an exotic life, Maya thought, with a twinge of jealousy – her own life in Deer Harbor had been so circumscribed, so confined. Her only journeys had been taken through the books she loved. She had never seen New York City, Paris, Rome, London, none of the places she had read about. Augusta was the biggest – well, really, the only – city she had ever visited. She supposed Daniel, in his life of espionage, had already seen dozens of interesting, exciting locales.

And didn't they say Paris was for lovers? Probably he had been there with his "friend," a romantic rendezvous for two glamorous spies in between their adventures…

_You have read too many books, girl. Quiet that imagination._

"Well, I guess we should – "

Maya's words were interrupted by a distant rumble of what at first sounded like thunder. The popping noises were too close together for that to be the case, she realized, a touch of panic causing her to freeze in place. Surely it wasn't gunfire, in Deer Harbor –

"Sounds like the fireworks have started." Daniel had crossed the living room and was peering out of the curtains at the night sky.

Fireworks. The Fourth of July. The town barbecue. Maya felt like smacking herself for overreacting, thankful Daniel hadn't noticed her momentary hysteria.

"You can see them better from the porch," she told him. "Dad and Jericho and I used to sit in the swing and watch them."

Daniel inclined his head toward the window. "You want to?"

"Aren't you too tired?"

"I think I should have this experience," Daniel answered solemnly. "Can you really know a town without watching its amateur fireworks display?"

Maya giggled again. Daniel seemed to have that effect on her.

They settled in beside one another on the wooden porch swing, Daniel pushing off with his bare toes so they rocked gently back and forth. Carelessly, almost unconsciously, he draped his arm along the back of the swing, seeming not to notice that unless Maya scooted to the very edge, she would have no choice but to sit with his arm basically around her shoulders. Though he didn't touch her, she hoped he wasn't trying to make a move: He was cute, no doubt about that, but she wasn't the type of girl who would sleep with someone she had just met.

_You are not the kind of girl who would sleep with a creepy undercover agent guy, period. Just so we're clear._

Daniel appeared completely focused on the brilliant bursts of red, blue, green, purple and yellow in the sky above them, however, not on seducing her. After a few minutes, Maya relaxed and allowed herself to lean back in the swing, feeling the warmth of his arm radiating onto her neck and shoulders.

"They do this every year," she related, remembering what her ostensible purpose in his life was – to introduce him to the intricacies of life in Deer Harbor. "The Chamber of Commerce puts on a big parade in the morning. In the afternoon, they have this little festival on Main Street, with cotton candy and lemon shake-ups and the Tilt-A-Whirl – well, I guess you saw it when you walked from the train station.

"Anyway, then in the evening they have a town-wide barbecue, sort of like a big potluck where church groups and businesses bring covered dishes. Charlie Osmond – he owns a big car dealership in town, the Ford/Lincoln/Mercury on Sixth Street – always provides the meat for the barbecue. They'll have live music, usually something really awful like an eighties tribute band or old guys playing bluegrass, and people dance. Then they do the fireworks once it's good and dark."

"Very small-town America, huh?" Daniel sounded far away; Maya wondered if he was recalling his own Fourth of July memories. When he looked at her, however, his eyes were clear and bright, almost intense in their focus.

"So I suppose Will Traveler would've taken you there in high school, huh? To the fair and the barbecue and the dance?"

Perplexed, Maya echoed, "Will Traveler? Who…?"

"It's the alias I was thinking of. For my assignment."

Will Traveler.

Have Books, Will Travel.

_Cute, considerate, charming – and clever._

"But if someone came here and saw my shop," Maya started, saying the first thing that popped into her mind. "Wouldn't it…I mean, wouldn't that be kind of…weird?"

"Yeah, I thought about that," Daniel admitted, sounding dispirited. "Too suspicious, right? So it's probably not a good idea…D'ya think?"

Maya considered his proposition. Strange as it was, she was flattered that Daniel would tailor his alias to the name of her store. Not only was the shop a huge aspect of Maya's life – the defining part, really, since her father had died and her brother was in prison – but she had also shared with him the name's significance for her family. His suggestion felt like an overture of friendship, like a way of showing his appreciation for her help and his sympathy for her "situation," as he had called it.

"How likely is it that someone would come here to check up on you?" she asked. Still knowing next to nothing about his mission, she couldn't make such evaluations herself. Not that she would have tried to, anyway.

"Not very," he conceded. "Not while it still matters, anyway."

That had an ominous ring to it. Hoping to remain on happier topics, Maya mused, "Well, if you don't think anybody's going to be making the trip to our exciting little hamlet to look into your story, then chances are nobody would make the connection, right?"

Now it was Daniel's turn to consider. The grand finale of the fireworks display blossomed overhead as he did so. They both looked up, but Maya found herself watching him out of the corner of her eye, noting how soft and boyish his features were in the red-and-blue reflected light.

Who was he, really?

Better not to know, she supposed.

"Will Traveler." Daniel tested the name on his tongue as the sparks melted away into the starless night sky. "I don't know…Try it out on me, would ya?"

Maya felt slightly self-conscious, like they were rehearsing for a play. "Hello, Will Traveler," she said seriously, shaking his hand. "I'm Maya Sanders."

"Nice to meet you, Maya."

Will's fingers, smooth except for a callous on the pad of his thumb, wrapped briefly around hers, sending a jolt of electricity up Maya's arm. If he felt it, he didn't let on.

"Okay, now, how about just 'Will.'"

Maya tried not to swim into his cerulean eyes as she dutifully recited, "Hi, Will."

_It suits him a lot better than Daniel Taft, anyway…_

Daniel/Will seemed to share her opinion. "Will Traveler it is then," he declared, leaning back in the swing and pushing off again so that they rocked back and forth. "Glad that's settled. Now tomorrow we can get started figuring out who the hell he is."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

"**Identity"**

The next day, the young man now known as Will Traveler rose at five o'clock, while the sun was still a scarlet sliver on the gray horizon. He had decided that Will Traveler should be both an early riser (owing to that good old Puritan work ethic the Northeast was famous for) and a dedicated runner (which would help explain his ability to take care of himself, despite being rather small for a man, if a situation like a bar fight ever came up at Yale).

One of the first lessons Alex had taught the young man was to always tell as much of the truth as possible when lying. It made the story more credible and easier to remember. The same advice, Joseph had taught him during the second phrase of his training, applied to creating covers: The best agents put as many elements of their real personalities (their preferences, their habits, their ideas, their experiences) into their undercover personas as possible, to make the fiction more believable and, to put it bluntly, more livable.

Will, as he would think of himself until this operation ended, liked to get up early and he liked to run. In his previous identity as J.C., he had not been able to do either of those things; he had been up half the night partying with Austin and his pals, and exercise had not exactly been high on their list of priorities. So he quite enjoyed waking with the birds, slipping into old sweats and a battered pair of Reebox, and stealing quietly out the side door for a six-mile run around the lake behind Maya's house.

Even as he incorporated aspects of his true identity into Will, however, the young man also had to let parts of other identities, especially the Daniel Taft identity, go. For instance, Daniel Taft, the person he had been just the day before, would not have been caught dead running in anything other than a carefully-matched running suit, preferably designer or at least name-brand, and a pair of the newest, most expensive Nikes. Will Traveler threw on the grungiest sweats and shoes he could find and headed out the door, heedless of who might see him and what they might think.

Unlike Taft, Will Traveler was a working-class kid from a small town. He didn't believe in spending his hard-earned money on expensive clothes that would be soaked with sweat by the time he finished his run in the late-summer heat; he didn't even really know that things like designer tracksuits existed, because he had never spent time around the sorts of people who would wear them.

Covers, as Daniel Taft had told Maya the night before, were made in the details.

Maya. Now there was an interesting topic. Hitting his stride two miles in, Will let his thoughts drift to the young woman he would be living with for the twenty-nine days until he boarded the train for New Haven and started his mission in earnest. He was surprised by how much he liked her: She was beautiful – temptingly so, he would have to be careful not to let his physical attraction get the better of him – and smart and witty and…Well, "cool" was the adjective that first popped into his mind. She had it together, even though he could tell she thought she didn't. Her vulnerability only added to her appeal.

Joseph hadn't told him much about Maya. Will knew that three years ago, her older brother Jericho, a real loser by all accounts, had gotten himself busted for drug possession; he had admitted after his arrest to storing his product in his sister's bookstore, which had led the state police straight to "Have Books, Will Travel" with a search warrant. Maya, at the time barely twenty years old, had insisted that she knew nothing about the bags of crystal meth hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the shop's stockroom. Since she had never been in trouble with the law before, Will was inclined to believe her version of events before he even met her; he definitely believed it after spending just one evening in her company – Maya was not the drug-dealing or drug-using type.

He also knew that her mother, Lorelei, had overdosed on heroine when Maya was twelve; that the cost of her father's prolonged illness, which had ended in his death five years ago, had eaten up all of Thomas's life insurance, leaving an eighteen-year-old Maya with all of his final expenses to manage on her own; that her bookstore made a decent profit for such a small town, yet not nearly enough to let her live a comfortable life; that her acceptance to Stanford, where she had planned to study British literature, had been foregone in the wake of her father's passing and her brother's imprisonment.

None of those details had prepared Will for just how strong, resilient, capable and brilliant Maya really was. He hadn't known quite how to react to her at first; she had thrown him, with her serious eyes and her unexpected intensity, her silky blonde hair and her husky, sexy voice. He had recovered badly from the surprise, in his opinion. Things had improved when he went downstairs for dinner, certainly, but he worried that Maya's first impression of him had been a negative one. And he worried how that might cause problems for him later in this operation.

Will finished his run in thirty-eight minutes, clocking him in at roughly six-minute miles – not bad, considering he hadn't so much as jogged half a block in eleven months. He cooled off by taking a slow walk around the lake.

It was an incredibly peaceful place, far enough removed from the main highway that the noise of traffic was virtually non-existent, surrounded by thick strands of trees carpeted with dense, green underbrush and an impressive array of wildflowers. Ripples on the water suggested a healthy population of fish. The day's first golden rays of sunshine sparkled on the surface, unable to penetrate the murky depths, hinting at a deep, sandy bottom far below. Will could imagine sinking his toes into that warm muck, feeling fish and snails and other water-creatures swimming around him.

He wondered if Maya might be up for a swim later, once she closed up shop for the day.

Maya, it turned out, was not an early riser. Will had showered, dressed in a clean pair of jeans (not the Sevens that Daniel Taft had worn, just plain old faded denim with well-worn patches at the knees) and a simple black tee-shirt, made a pot of coffee and eaten a light breakfast of granola and fresh peaches when she appeared around eight.

"I thought you'd sleep in, you seemed so tired last night," she said by way of greeting. She looked fresh and pretty in khakis and a white tank, her kinky-curled blonde hair still damp from the shower.

Will was seated at the kitchen table with chemical engineering textbooks and legal pads scattered around him, his laptop open. "I like to get an early start," he answered. "Coffee's about an hour old, but it's still hot, if you want some."

"Thanks." Maya moved around the kitchen pouring a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee before joining him. Her bare feet brushed his under the table, and Will felt a jolt of electricity not unlike the one he had experienced the night before when she had shaken his hand.

_Definitely an attraction there – I have to watch myself…_

"Did you sleep okay?" Maya inquired, between bites of cereal. "I hope the bed was comfortable."

"It was great, thanks."

"So, what's the plan for today, Daniel? Sorry." Maya instantly flushed at her misstep. Clearing her throat, she tried again, "So, what's the plan for today, Will? Are you coming to the shop with me or staying here?"

"Coming with, if that's okay," Will replied. He wasn't terribly eager to be alone all day with the chemical engineering textbooks, though he understood that, sooner rather than later, he needed to get a handle on the subject. "I won't come everyday, but I'd like to for a while here at first, get to know the town a little more."

Maya said that was fine with her. Washing up their breakfast dishes while he packed up his laptop and notepads, she asked tentatively, "So I was thinking this morning, what am I supposed to tell people when they ask who you are?"

Will had a ready answer, one dictated by Joseph: "You tell them my name is Daniel Taft, that we met at the private bookstore owner's convention in Augusta last October, and that I'm here for a few weeks learning how to operate the business from you so I can open my own store in Harrison, down in Cumberland County."

Mouth half-open, Maya gaped at him. "You – how – these people know that I went to a bookstore owner's convention last October?"

Her innocence touched him. Will had worked for Hometown, for Jack Freed and the Partners, for four years; he had long since accepted that very, very little about his life was private. But Maya, she had no reason to suspect that from the moment she had agreed to work with Hometown five years ago, she had been trailed, watched, and recorded. The Partners kept tabs on everyone associated with their pet project, no matter how peripheral their involvement was.

He stood and walked over to her, experimenting with how Will Traveler would respond to an upset female. With earnest sympathy, and a steadfast determination to make things right, the young man decided – that fit the profile of the persona he needed to project in order to gain his real targets' trust once he arrived in New Haven.

The response wasn't that much of a stretch for him, anyway. He felt sorry for Maya, for the mess her brother had landed her in, and he honestly disliked seeing her upset.

Looking down solemnly into Maya's eyes, Will advised, "Don't think on it. Just do what they've asked you to do and be done with it, and don't think about it. This'll all be over soon and you can have your life back, for real – nobody looking over your shoulder, no waiting for some cryptic phone call. Okay?"

_Right. Because the Partners are going to just let this convenient little fish off the hook…_

Will pushed away those thoughts. What happened to Maya when her role in his operation ended was beyond his control; he would talk to Joseph, probably, try to help her if he could, though he doubted his input would be taken very seriously. He knew nothing about managing assets – especially ones who had been forced into their roles, like Maya.

Maya seemed taken aback by his concern, but she responded to it as he had suspected she would – warmly. "Thanks, Will." She smiled sheepishly up at him. "I promise not to go all emotional on you every time something like this comes up. It just…It just takes some getting used to."

They both seemed to become aware of how close together they were standing – practically toe-to-toe – at the same time. Blushing, Maya turned away, toward the windows overlooking the backyard; Will simultaneously fell back a step, widening the space between them. In the future, he noted to himself, he would have to be careful not to come on so strong in the role of protector. The last thing he wanted (or needed) was to stir up any romantic notions in Maya.

_Or in myself…_

That day, as Maya looked after customers and worked on ordering books, Will perused old copies of _The Times-Commoner, _the local paper, online at the computer in Maya's small, cluttered office. Seeing her immaculate house and the well-kept storefront, he had assumed Maya was a neat-freak. Her office told a different story: It wasn't dirty, exactly, it was more… lived-in. In fact, Will got the impression that Maya "lived" more in her store than in her own home. He wondered what memories drove her away from that place, if it was the losses she had suffered or something more, something perhaps even Hometown, with all of their resources, didn't know about.

At noon, Maya took him for a walk down Main Street, showing him the post office, the bank, the courthouse and city hall, the sheriff's office, the volunteer fire department, and a few assorted antique shops, dime stores, and cafes. They ate lunch at the counter of Margot's Deli, served by Margot herself, a chubby, pink-cheeked, gum-chewing Deer Harbor native who, she told Will (introduced as Daniel per his directive), had opened the restaurant after retiring from truck-driving ten years ago.

"Back gave out," she explained gruffly, leaning on the counter and watching with a hawk-like gaze to ensure that every crumb of his turkey-and-ham-on-croissant was eaten. "Wouldn't have thought it'd be hard on my back to spend all that time sittin' on my fat ass, but that's what the old sawbones told me. Anyhow, I took up the best part o' twenty-five years eatin' in little shit-hole diners and truck stops, so I figured it couldn't be too hard to make a livin' running a restaurant. Came back here and got old Larry Shanks – we used to call 'im Long Shanks, 'til he got too important for nicknames – down the bank to give me a small business loan, and I been here ever since, haven't I, Miss Maya?"

Sipping syrupy-sweet iced tea, Maya confirmed, "Yes, ma'am."

"What's that good for nothin' brother of yours up to these days?" Margot inquired bluntly, grabbing a pitcher and refilling Will's tea glass before he could protest. His teeth already felt coated from the sugar; he didn't know how he was going to choke down another full glass, yet he suspected Margot would be highly offended if he didn't.

Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw Maya grinning. He had a feeling she knew exactly the predicament he was in and was enjoying it immensely.

"Jericho's still in prison." Maya answered the rather nosy question evenly, as if it was one she heard often. "I don't think he comes up for parole until after Christmas."

"D'ya hear that the oldest Pruitt boy's out of prison?"

Will sensed Maya stiffen beside him. He cut his eyes toward her, taking in her clenched jaw and furrowed brow. "No, I hadn't heard that. Is he back around here?"

"Saw 'im last night comin' outta Ray's, that little dive east of town," Margot replied, shaking her head disgustedly. She wagged a finger at Maya. "You watch yourself, Miss Maya. That boy may still have it in his head that you got off 'cause you turned evidence on him."

As Margot busied herself cutting them each a slice of homemade apple pie and pouring them cups of coffee, Will considered whether or not he should press Maya on this issue. Her pursed lips clearly indicated it was not something she wanted to discuss, but if some local hood was gunning for her, Will couldn't ignore that the situation might affect his mission. He was not in Deer Harbor to attract attention to himself; beyond the necessary public forays as he acquainted himself with the town, like lunch at Margot's and a stroll down Main Street, he didn't intend to advertise his presence. When he left, he wanted people to quickly forget that he had ever been there – or not to have noticed in the first place. Accomplishing that goal meant that for the next month, he needed Maya to maintain a low profile as well, until he was safely ensconced in New Haven as Will Traveler.

"Here ya go, loves," Margot announced, proudly serving up heaping dishes of pie and ice cream. "On the house. Daniel, welcome to Deer Harbor," she said, shaking his hand across the counter. "You come back soon and we'll look at puttin' some meat on those skinny bones o' yours."

"Don't take it personally," Maya advised him, once Margot moved off to look after other customers. "Margot's one of the nicest people in town. She's one of the only people who hasn't treated me like a social pariah for the last three years," she added, somewhat bitterly.

It hadn't escaped Will that, despite the steady flow of business in and out of Maya's bookstore, the townspeople tended to avert their eyes when she walked down the street. He had grown up in too large of a place to appreciate small town politics, but he did understand being ostracized – the poor kid at an elite prep school tended to attract more bullies than buddies.

Wanting to show his solidarity, Will observed dryly, "Most people are idiots. From what I've seen of this town so far, I doubt you're missing much by not being invited to join the Lady's Auxiliary."

Maya giggled. Will thought again, as he had before, what a nice ring her laugh had to it; he also couldn't deny that it made him tingle inside to know something he had said or done was the reason for the pretty smile lighting up her face.

_Careful, Will. Don't get too close. You know the rules…_

They finished their pie and coffee and, because they were both stuffed from the enormous lunch, walked what Maya referred to as "the long way" back to her shop. This proved to involve cutting through a series of side streets that led past places like the middle school, the high school, the Baptist church and the Luthern church, a daycare, a laundromat, the car dealership Maya had mentioned the night before – all of the little pieces that, together, made up life in a small town. Maya also pointed out where notable people lived on the quiet, tree-lined residential streets, such as the mayor, the sheriff, the retired Army colonel, the former Broadway singer. Will carefully filed all of the information away into his excellent memory, so he could recall it later when providing those details that would secure his cover at Yale.

At five o'clock sharp, Maya flipped the sign on the door to "closed" and set about locking up. Will shuffled his notepads into an old black backpack he had found in the top of her brother's closet. The inside smelled suspiciously of Patchouli, suggesting that Jericho had toted more than books in the bag and had tried to hide the tell-tale aroma of marijuana by burning incense. Will hoped Maya wouldn't mind him using it, because it had struck him as the sort of beat-up but much-loved item Will Traveler would refuse to throw away or replace with something new. He already felt rather attached to it.

Will often discovered small things like the backpack that helped him nail down important aspects of a new identity. For J.C., it had been a tiny resin Buddha statue that he had carried like a lucky rabbit's foot in his pocket. For Daniel Taft, it was a small, tasteful 24-karat gold crucifix he always wore around his neck. For Will, it would be the bag, a high school relic that he was too stubborn to throw away.

Over dinner (lasagna and garlic bread, Maya was an excellent cook and Will reflected dryly that if he kept eating so well he was going to have to add onto his run or risk getting fat), they talked about Will's back-story. Coming up with the right cover necessitated Will sharing some aspects of his mission with Maya: If she didn't know what he needed to do, how he needed to be perceived and by whom, she couldn't very well assist him in creating a plausible history.

"The guys I'll be living with are pretty different from one another," Will informed her, twisting a soft, doughy noodle around his fork and waiting for the cheese to cool. They had opened another bottle of wine and, whether because she was nervous about their conversation or something else, Maya was drinking rather quickly, already on her second glass. "Have you ever heard of Fog Industries?"

Swallowing a mouthful of merlot, Maya shook her head. "I don't think so. Should I have?"

"It's an enormous corporation, sort of a conglomeration of different types of companies – media, finance, defense contracting, architecture, you name it. One of the guys I'll be living with is Tyler Fog, the oldest son of the company's CEO, Carlton Fog."

_Who I would love to take down, but one step at a time, one step at a time._

Maya looked puzzled. "Hold on a sec. Why is some billionaire's kid living in graduate student housing? Shouldn't he, I don't know, have bodyguards and PlayBoy bunnies running around a huge mansion somewhere?"

Will grinned at the mental image that conjured up – he doubted Yale would have approved of such a lifestyle, at least on campus. Careful to stay within the parameters of what he was allowed to reveal to this particular asset, Will replied, "It's been arranged so that Tyler won't be getting quite as big of an allowance as he's used to for the next few years."

Eyes narrowing suspiciously, Maya challenged, "You mean, the people you work for have caused some kind of problems between him and his dad, so he's gotten cut off."

"Well, not exactly, but the result is the same: Tyler doesn't have daddy's money anymore, so he'll be roughing it with the rest of us peons."

Maya still looked doubtful – and a little perturbed by the possibility that the mysterious people she was being forced to work for would create conflict between a parent and child. Eager to shift her attention elsewhere, Will hurried on, "The other guy's name is Jay Burchell. He's a military brat, spent most of his life in Long Beach after his father committed suicide."

Maya gasped. "That's-that's awful."

"Yeah," Will commented, unable to muster too much sympathy. From what Joseph had told him, Burchell's father was a coward and a traitor, not exactly someone to shed many tears over. Though apparently, his son idolized him. "I think my story should include something about the loss of a parent, to make Burchell identify with me more, you know?"

The instant the words left his mouth, Will wanted to slap himself. Maya's expression changed from shocked, to horrified, to outraged in the span of five seconds; before he could so much as start an apology, she was on her feet.

"Perfect," she snapped, throwing her napkin into the middle of her plate, despite the fact that she had barely touched her food. "Why don't you 'include' your parents dying, just to be sure your story's a little more believable."

"Maya, I – "

"Fuck off, Will. Or Daniel. Or whatever the hell your name is."

She marched away from the table and out the side door, leaving him in silent consternation.

_Smooth one, Will._

So he had slipped, he consoled himself. It wasn't the end of the world; it happened sometimes at the outset of assuming a new identity, which was why one took the time to settle into the persona before trying it out on a target. For just a moment, he had forgotten to be Will Traveler, sweet and charming and all-American and corn-fed, and had fallen back into being Daniel Taft, the suave, calculating, ambitious Hometown agent.

Daniel Taft wouldn't have cared in the least if Maya Sanders was offended by the lengths he would go to in creating a cover that would endear him to his targets, steering him past their defenses and glossing over any doubts they might have about his authenticity. Will Traveler, on the other hand, did care. And Will Traveler was who he had been for Maya since joining her for dinner the night before. Understandably, she couldn't tell the difference in personas yet; she couldn't be expected to understand where or how the slip had occurred, or to realize that Will's take on things was much closer to the young man's real feelings than Daniel's.

Will considered his options. He could sit here at the table, finish his supper and his wine, clean up the dishes and wait for her to return, hopefully cooled off. Waiting her out the other evening had worked, but then again, he hadn't made an ass out of himself in that situation – Maya had been frustrated in general, not furious with him.

The other possibility was to swallow his pride and chase after her, to insist that she hear and accept his apology.

Daniel Taft would have waited. Will Traveler headed out the door.

Twilight had fallen while they lingered over their wine and pasta. In the half-light, Will could just see Maya's slender form at the end of the walkway leading out into the lake behind her house. She was seated on the edge, her shoes beside her and her jeans rolled up to the knee, dangling her toes in the water.

She ignored Will as he sat down beside her. Removing his own sandals and turning up his pantlegs, he submerged his feet in the surprisingly warm water.

A long silence ensued. Anger radiated off of Maya in waves; Will suppressed the urge to shift away from her to escape it.

_Okay, Will, time to make this right. Ready – set – go…_

"So," he began lightly, "sometimes I'm an asshole. Did they mention that in the Spies 'R Us brochure you got?"

Maya did not crack a smile. "You don't owe me any explanations. You are what you are."

Ouch. Will had to admit, that one stung – though no more than he deserved.

Well, if humor wasn't going to work, perhaps sincerity would.

"I'm sorry," he stated simply. He leaned back on his palms so he could study her from the side; Maya refused to look at him, though he knew she felt his gaze. "I really am, Maya. Look, I can't imagine what it's been like for you without your parents. I was just…I was just thinking out loud, and sometimes, with what I do, I think some not very nice things. It was thoughtless of me. No, that's…that's not what it was. It was inexcusable, that's what it was, for me to say something like that, especially to you."

"Why do you care how I feel?" she shot back. Will heard the slightest tremor in her voice and hoped against hope she wasn't going to cry.

Because then he would have to reach for her, to hold her, and once that happened, he wasn't sure how far things might go…

"It's not like I have a choice about helping you," Maya went on heatedly, kicking her feet so forcefully that she splashed water all over Will's lap. She either didn't notice or didn't care. "I'm stuck with you, and this situation, no matter how I feel about it. So it's not like you're obligated to apologize."

Working to hold his own temper in check, Will answered calmly, "I know I'm not 'obligated,' Maya. I acted like a jerk and I _want _to apologize. I didn't mean to upset you."

"Yeah, well…" She couldn't seem to think of a response, though she appeared no less angry. Finally, she burst out, "I wouldn't expect you to understand what it's like, being all alone. I'm sure you've got this fabulous, exciting life, running off to all these exotic places and doing all of these dangerous things. I wouldn't expect you to care about how it feels to lose the people you love, the people you count on to look out for you."

"Hey." The sharpness in Will's tone finally brought Maya's flashing eyes to his face. He glared right back at her, angry now himself. "You don't know a damn thing about who or what I've lost, all right? So before you decide my life's perfect, you might want to remember that."

"Oh, so who has the top-secret undercover agent lost? Your mother? Your father?"

Will's only response was stony silence. Even if he had been permitted to delve into such aspects of his past – his real past, not the one he was creating for his cover in New Haven – he was too furious with her at the moment to have answered.

His silence, however, seemed to be telling enough for Maya. He saw her anger deflate slowly as the realization set in that, after all, she didn't know who the man beside her might have lost.

_Everyone I had to lose._

"I…Will, I'm…Ugh, look, I'm sorry." Maya braced her elbows on her knees and leaned over, resting her forehead in her hands. "God, this situation is just making me crazy. I'm not normally such a bitch, I'm really not."

Sensing that he was on a little better footing with her now, Will sat forward and placed one hand lightly between her shoulder-blades. Maya didn't pull away, which he took as a good sign.

"It's okay," he assured her. He gently rubbed her back through her tank-top, feeling the taut muscles there, trying not to imagine how soft her skin would be. "I was a jerk. You should be angry with me for saying something so heartless, regardless of the circumstances."

He scooted over to her, draping his arm fully around her shoulders. Maya allowed the contact; though she moved no closer, her feet barely brushed against his under the lake's murky surface.

_Careful, Will. Don't come on too strong, remember? Don't forget the rules…_

Quietly, he continued, "I am sorry. I really am. Please don't stay mad."

Maya sighed. He couldn't tell if she was sad, weary, frustrated – or all three. "I'm not mad," she said at length, the anger drained from her voice. "Not at you, anyway. Not really."

"You sure? 'Cause you can push me in if you want. I'd understand."

She giggled. Tingles raced down Will's spine again.

"Maybe later."

"Do you want to go back in? You hardly ate anything."

"Okay." Maya let him pull her to her feet. Once they were both standing, however, she released his hand immediately and walked ahead of him back to the house, causing Will to wonder if everything was really forgiven and forgotten between them after all.

They said little as they warmed their plates and finished dinner. Tension dulled Will's appetite; he picked at his food, watching Maya pick at hers, until they rose in unison, by some unspoken accord, to scrape their half-full plates and wash the dishes.

Afterwards, they settled in to work in the living room. Will wisely decided against concocting more of his back-story that night; instead, he asked Maya to quiz him on the first three chapters of _Thermodynamics: An Introduction_, which he had studied before she woke that morning. The material was far from fascinating – technical and tedious summed it up, really. Nevertheless, Will was pleased with himself for getting nearly every answer right, and more than that, feeling as if he actually understood the subject. Odd, how AP Science would come in useful for his career as a spy.

Finally, around eleven, Maya closed the book. "That's it," she announced. "Twenty-eight out of thirty correct for that chapter."

"Thank God." Will, who had been pacing in front of the stone fireplace, collapsed onto the opposite end of the couch from Maya, leaving a respectful distance between them. He propped his bare feet on the coffee table and laced his fingers behind his head, closing his eyes. "Guess I'm gonna have to get a better attitude about chemistry before August, huh?"

"I don't know," Maya answered evenly, walking out to the kitchen and taking out two mugs. He watched her put on a kettle of water for tea. "Lots of people do things they don't really enjoy, because it makes lots of money or because they just don't know anything else to do. Milk or sugar?" she asked, referring to the tea.

Will considered for a moment what a young man from Deer Harbor, Maine, would take in his tea. Daniel Taft took milk, honey and sugar, a proper British drink; J.C. would have turned his nose up at anything besides beer, whiskey, or Mountain Dew.

"Just sugar," he decided. That seemed manly enough for the wilds of the Northeast.

"But you like what you do," Will pointed out, resuming their conversation as the kettle began to whistle. Maya poured the steaming water over tea bags and carried the mugs over to the couch. After thanking her, Will went on, "I mean, the bookstore seems like it really makes you happy, like you wouldn't want to do anything else."

Maya blew on her tea to cool it off. "I suppose. I think it's mostly that it was Dad's place."

Fearful that discussing her father might reinvigorate her earlier anger at him, Will said quickly, "Yeah, but it's yours now, and you do a wonderful job with it."

"Thanks." The smile she bestowed on him was genuine – and significantly more relaxed. Will breathed a sigh of relief that he was, once again, worming his way back into her good graces. "I used to want to be a teacher. I mean, when I was in high school, I saw myself teaching literature at a prep school somewhere, someplace fancy, like Boston. But I can't say I dislike running the store. And it does well enough, I suppose."

They sipped in silence for a few minutes until Maya asked, "So if Will Traveler enjoys chemistry so much, what is it that he wants to do after Yale?"

"Make lots of money," Will answered automatically.

She laughed. He hoped she didn't notice the stomach-dropping effect her brilliant smile had on him.

"I think I may also be an idealist, though. An idealist who wants to make money. Is that possible?"

Maya shrugged. "I suppose so. I'm guessing you need to have some interest in money so Tyler won't think you're a complete waste of space, just another tree-hugging hippie or whatever. But what about Jay? What's he planning to do?"

"Law." Will had memorized his targets' files during his twenty-four-hour lay-over at Joseph's. "He has a Political Science degree from UCLA. He's like the Boy Scout poster-child, this guy – ROTC, like three thousand hours of volunteer work. And, he got a 170 on his LSAT."

Maya whistled to show that she was impressed.

"Then there's Fog. Party boy, as I'm sure you can imagine," Will continued. Maya was listening avidly; he enjoyed having her full attention, though he reminded himself not to give away anything that was off-limits for her ears. "Barely scraped by with a BS in Finance from NYU. Probably only graduated because of his dad's connections. I doubt he's ever done any community service that wasn't court-ordered – he's had a couple of drunk and disorderly charges, nothing big. He's fairly vocal in his denouncement of all things political, probably because the SEC almost put his old man away a few years ago for fraud, but mostly he's just a screw-off, your typical spoiled rich kid."

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Maya turned so that she was facing Will, one slender leg folded underneath her. "They don't sound like bad guys."

Will's heart stumbled in his chest. He felt like kicking himself: It should have occurred to him that Maya would, quite naturally, assume that he was going undercover amongst criminals. For his past two missions, that had been the truth, although the crimes his targets had eventually been arrested for were more Will's doing than theirs. Burchell and Fog, however, were completely different beasts. They weren't, as Maya pointed out, "bad guys." They were absolutely innocent.

And once Will Traveler was finished with them, they would be branded as traitors. He didn't have all of the details – his final directive would come much, much later in the operation, Joseph had warned – yet he didn't need the whole story to know the ending. He had watched the same scenario play out too many times in the last four years not to understand what he was ultimately being asked to do.

He considered lying to Maya, at least insinuating that his soon-to-be roommates were dangerous somehow. But Will knew he couldn't do that just to salvage his image in her eyes: Maya needed to be clear on certain aspects of his operation, Joseph had made that much plain, and one tidbit of information she was authorized to be told was that Burchell and Fog were innocent. Without knowing that, she couldn't effectively help Will create, assimilate and maintain an appropriate identity, one that would ensure that he could gain the trust and friendship of his targets.

So Will told her the truth. He admitted that he didn't relish the prospect of framing innocent people. He didn't mention the connection between his true past and Carlton Fog, that being out-of-bounds where Maya was concerned; the possibility of wounding Fog notwithstanding, however, Will still couldn't deny experiencing real pangs of conscience over ruining these two men's lives.

"Then why do it?" was Maya's immediate – and not unexpected – question.

"Because it's necessary," was Will's ready, sincere answer.

He held her gaze, letting his faith in his work show through. "I don't understand why or how, and I don't need to. It's enough for me that someone who knows a lot more about this country than I do has decided that this needs to happen. My job is just to make it so."

"You talk like a soldier." Maya's observation struck Will as somewhat less than a compliment. "Like so long as you're just following orders, you're not responsible for anything you do. That's a total cop-out, Will – "

"Maya." Will lifted his hand to cut her off. "I'm not interested in another fight, I'm really, really not, so please, don't be angry at me for saying this. I told you last night, you need to be careful what questions you ask. You have to understand that some things I can't answer."

"So you can't tell me why you're doing this? For you, personally? You can't explain why this is your choice?"

Firmly, he replied, "My reasons for doing what I do are irrelevant."

Maya turned away. Softening his tone, Will angled his body inward, facing her; after a moment, she turned back toward him, regarding him warily.

"You don't know me yet, Maya, so I don't expect you to fully understand this. But I do believe in what I'm doing, and I have reasons for why I believe. Once we've spent more time together," he concluded, hoping to draw on the affection she had seemed to feel toward him that day, "I think you'll trust me to know what I'm doing, even if I can't explain it all to you."

For what seemed like a long time but was probably only minutes, Maya studied him. Not unlike during a debrief, Will acquiesced to her inspection, calmly staring into her eyes while he watched her work out what to make of him and his assertions.

At last, she declared, "You're right, Will – I don't know you."

Ouch. Again.

Part of Will wanted to automatically protest, to remind her that she had said she didn't mind having him here, that they had actually spent quite a nice day together until his screw-up over dinner. Yet Will had learned when to leave well enough alone. He recognized, with a strong measure of disappointment, that for tonight Maya's brutally honest answer was the most he could expect from her. So he said nothing as she got to her feet, carried their cups to the sink, and started for the stairs.

When she was halfway up, he suddenly remembered that he had never asked her about Margot's warning. Hurrying to the foot of the steps, he called after her, "Maya?"

"What is it?" She turned, expectant and a tad impatient.

Will cautioned himself to be tactful, given the temper she was already in combined with how eager she had been at lunch to drop the subject he was about to raise.

"Speaking of bad guys," he prefaced his query with an attempt at levity, "Margot said something about some guy who might have a grudge against you being back in town…"

"Andrew Pruitt," Maya clarified. Her lips curled distastefully around the name. "He hung out with my brother when they were in high school, and then later when they were both dealing drugs. He got busted for making crystal meth not long after Jericho and I were arrested."

"And he thinks you weren't prosecuted on those charges because you provided the information that led to his arrest?"

Maya confirmed this with a nod.

"Has he threatened you?"

Seeming to see where Will was going with his line of inquiry, Maya waved off his concern with a flick of her wrist. "Andy Pruitt is an ignorant hick who likes to blow smoke, Will, that's all. He comes from a family full of convicts and junkies and winos. They live out of town in this trailer park, I don't know, sort of like a compound-type thing, and they think they're all the baddest people on the planet. But the truth of the matter is, they're just a bunch of drunk idiots who spend more time in jail than out of it. Margot was just gossiping, that's all that was."

Will refused to be put off. For one thing, he had sensed real concern behind Margot's words; for another, he scented evasiveness in Maya's demeanor now.

"You didn't answer my question, Maya: Has Pruitt threatened you?"

_And would he like his stupid hick face punched in for doing so?_

"What's it to you if he has?" Maya shot back, looking fierce again. "This isn't your problem, Will."

"It could be," he retorted, "if this guy comes after you while I'm here. I can't afford to be made visible in this town, Maya," he explained, trying to make her understand that he wasn't prying into her life for the fun of it. "I have to stay under the radar while I'm here. That means you and I both have to keep out of trouble. And it sounds like this Pruitt guy could be trouble."

Maya's icy glare clearly conveyed that Will had not succeeded in defusing her ire. "Andy Pruitt is my problem," she pronounced acidly. "I promise, he won't make any 'trouble' for you."

"Dammit, Maya, are you always this stubborn? You know that's not what I meant."

Will's patience with Maya's determination to see him as the enemy had finally snapped. Since joining Hometown four years ago, he had never encountered a person he could not charm or manipulate – until this frustratingly, fascinatingly independent woman came along.

Dragging a hand through his hair in a desperate attempt to reclaim his composure, Will wasn't sure whether he wanted to slap her or kiss her.

Maya continued to glare daggers at him. Under her angry stare, he felt compelled to go on, though the smarter move would probably have been to let her storm off.

"I didn't mean that I don't care if this guy hassles you," Will grated out, suspecting that she knew this but wanted to force it out of him, just because she could. "If the situation were different, I'd go kick his ignorant hick ass for threatening you. Is that what you want to hear? But I can't, at the moment. I just – "

"You just have a job to do," Maya interjected, her voice cool but no longer hostile. Will almost wished she still sounded angry; the evenness of her tone lent a credence to her words, a sense of her conviction in their validity, that galled him worse than her insults.

"You think I don't get how this is going to work, Will, but I'm starting to. You're here because you have orders to carry out, and I'm here because I agreed to help whoever it is you work for in exchange for being bailed out of a tight spot."

"And that means we can't like one another?" Will demanded.

Maya descended a few steps toward him, her face registering surprise. "I didn't know you were all that interested in 'liking' me, Will. I thought you just wanted to get along so the month would go by faster and you could do your job better."

_That's what I'm supposed to want, she's right. I'm not supposed to care about anything else._

_Will Traveler would care, though. And that's me now. I'm Will._

Taking a deep, composing breath, Will ascended the stairs until he was standing on the same step with Maya, looking down into her lovely blue-grey eyes. "I'm not the bad guy here," he told her softly. "I'm not your enemy, either. I'd actually really like to be your friend."

Maya twisted a lock of hair nervously around one finger, looking slightly disconcerted by his closeness. Will stayed put, using her discomfiture to his advantage; he had already seen that when anxious, Maya tended to be more malleable.

"Okay," she agreed after a short pause, tilting her chin back so she could meet his eyes.

Trying to ignore how temptingly close her lips were to his, Will forcibly regulated his tone to be even and light, not husky and yearning. "Okay meaning…?" he prompted, managing a grin.

"Okay," she went on, returning his smile rather shyly, "meaning I'd like it if we were friends, too."

"Good." Will stepped back down one stair so she had room to breathe. He couldn't tell if the look on her face conveyed relief or disappointment; for his own peace of mind, he decided to label it the former. "I guess I'll see you in the morning then, Maya."

She nodded. Will watched her continue up the stairs and disappear into her bedroom, pausing in the doorway to look back at him, once, her expression unfathomable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4:**

"**Intimacy"**

Maya liked Will. She liked him in spite of herself, actually. Quite infuriatingly, she found that the more she tried to dislike him, the more endearing he became.

After eight days of life with Will (well, seven, actually, since the first day he had been Daniel), Maya had figured out that her houseguest wasn't trying to manipulate her with his subtle yet hard-to-miss shifts in personality. She had, after three awkward days of trying to pin down his motives, finally put together that this was simply the process of assuming a new identity: Will Traveler was coming to life before her eyes, shedding the habits and reactions of Daniel Taft and who knew how many other personas, adjusting his behaviors and attitudes as he learned, from her, how a person who had spent his entire life in Deer Harbor would think, act and speak.

It was fascinating, in a way. Horrifying, but fascinating.

And so Maya realized day by day that she liked the man Will was becoming more and more. She liked that he rose with the dawn for his daily run, then tip-toed around the house to keep from waking her; she liked that he had asked her to teach him how to fish, a must-have for Deer Harbor natives, and that he practiced with an intensity more befitting a classical pianist in training than an amateur fisherman; she liked that he read to her at night when they finished their work, seated at one end of her couch holding her feet in his lap as he read aloud from her collection of Edgar Allen Poe short stories. She liked his smile, so sudden and unaffected; his arms, thin but muscular; his voice, low and deferential, yet confident; his hair, messy and soft. Despite her best efforts to view him as her enemy, or at least the friend of her enemies, by the end of their first week together, Maya acknowledged that she had developed one huge crush on Will Traveler.

She also acknowledged that nothing would ever come of it. He was a spy and a soldier; she was a bookstore owner and a small-town girl going nowhere. Anyway, she didn't think Will saw her as anything other than a companionable roommate and co-worker; he didn't seem to experience the same jolts of electricity whenever they brushed against one another while passing on the stairs or standing shoulder-to-shoulder washing dishes.

Nevertheless, even as she recognized that any sort of romance was completely out of the question, Maya was finding it increasingly difficult not to think of Will as a live-in boyfriend since he seemed to be taking her out every night. He needed to learn the area, he said, visit the nearby towns, the state parks, the closest mall, the good restaurants, the hideaways off the beaten path that only a life-long Deer Harbor resident would be familiar with. He had to be able to talk about Maya's hometown as if he had spent his entire childhood there; covers, he told her at least once a day, were made in the details.

Maya had no reason to suspect Will of ulterior motives for these outings – quite the opposite, in fact: She knew how dedicated he was to his work, how determined he was to perfect his cover for this operation. But the fact that Will insisted on driving, opening her door, pulling out her chair, standing when she left the table, and paying for everything did nothing to dispel the illusion that they were on a date instead of a mission.

_Get it together, girl, _she told herself daily. _He is not Prince Charming, and he is not here to sweep you off your feet._

On the morning of their eighth day together, a Thursday, Maya woke as always at seven-thirty, showered, slipped into jeans and a Rolling Stones tee-shirt (a hand-me-down from Jericho she had never been able to part with, regardless of the trouble her brother had caused her), and bounded down the stairs. She expected to find Will pouring over chemical engineering textbooks as usual. But he wasn't at the table, or on the couch, and she hadn't seen him upstairs…

_Blood._

In the doorway to the kitchen, Maya pulled up short, her heart stumbling against her ribs. Drops of blood led across the linoleum to the sink, where a pool of the sticky, rust-colored liquid had gathered on the floor.

"Will!"

She screamed his name, panic elevating her voice to two decibels above normal volume. Where was he? Who had hurt him? How seriously was he injured? Mind reeling, Maya made for the back door, the only thought in her mind that somewhere Will was bleeding, and she didn't know where he could be or how to find him.

She had only gone a few steps when the door off the kitchen opened and Will, his face registering alarm as his eyes darted around the room in search of danger, stepped inside. "What?" he asked sharply. "What's happened?"

"You son of a bitch! You scared me to death." Maya sagged against the counter. Relief washed over her in a wave, flooding her veins, driving the strength out of her limbs.

Will was safe; he was all right.

Gesturing weakly at the blood trail, she admonished, "I thought you'd been axe-murdered."

"Shit. Sorry," Will hastily apologized, looking sheepish. "I'll clean this up. I didn't realize what a mess I'd made."

He grabbed a wad of papertowels off the roll by the stove and knelt down to mop up the blood. Maya dropped down to help him, eyeing him for injuries but finding none.

"What happened?" she demanded.

Will stuck out his right leg and pulled the cuff of his jeans up to his knee, revealing a line of fifteen neat stitches down the shinbone. "I tripped on my run this morning, like a total klutz," he related ruefully. "Fell onto some jagged piece of metal out there in the weeds by the lake – looked like part of an old lawn mower blade, maybe. Anyway," he concluded, standing and stuffing blood-soaked towels into the trash, "I sliced myself open pretty good."

"And then drove yourself to the hospital?"

Maya planted her hands on her hips as she straightened, glowering at him. Really, he was something else: Spy or not, he should have let her take care of him if he was hurt.

"You could've woken me, Will, I'd have taken you – "

"I didn't go to the hospital," he broke in. His tone suggested that the idea was preposterous.

Bewildered, Maya protested, "But you have stitches…"

Even before the last word crossed her lips, Maya realized what he had done. Her stomach turned at the prospect of the pain he had put himself through, yet she managed to state quite calmly, "You did those yourself."

Will shrugged, thoroughly nonplussed. "I've had training as a field medic. All operatives do. I know how to put in stitches."

_Yes, but medics don't normally operate on themselves…_

Steadying herself – the sight of blood and the mental image of Will sewing his own skin back together had made her dizzy – Maya spoke gently but firmly. "Will, I want you to promise me something," she said, placing her hand lightly on his arm. He looked back at her with a certain amount of trepidation, obviously wary of what might be asked of him. "I want you to promise me that while you're here, if you get hurt or you get sick, you'll come to me. I know you can look after yourself," she hurried to block his automatic protest. "I'm asking this for me, for my sake. Okay?"

Will appeared so touched that Maya couldn't help wondering when anyone had last expressed concern for his well-being – or if anyone ever had. As he had pointed out to her, she knew nothing about his real past; perhaps he was even more alone in the world than she was, with no one at all who had ever cared about him. At least she'd had her parents for a while, could carry their memories with her, and she still had Jericho, even though he tended to cause more heartache for her than anything.

Well, she told herself, Will wasn't alone in the world anymore. He had her to care about him.

"Okay," he answered, "I promise."

That day, Will did not go to the bookstore with her. He said he had seen enough of the town for his purposes; he wanted to start fading from people's memories, so that in three weeks' time most of them wouldn't even recall that a young man named Daniel Taft had visited Maya.

She understood his reasons. Yet she was unprepared for how empty the day was without Will there to talk to, although her shop was just as busy as any normal weekday. Maya couldn't deny that once Will left for New Haven, going back to her solitary life – and, more specifically, life without him in it everyday – would be very lonely.

Their work was far from over, however. Will had a new topic to consume him now that he felt comfortable with Deer Harbor: baseball.

Over dinner at a mom-and-pop pizza parlor in nearby Caseyville the night before, Will had informed Maya that he had finally settled on a common bond which could draw him and his roommates together. Despite coming from opposite coasts (Burchell from California, Fog from New York) and belonging to wildly different worlds, it turned out that both Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog were devoted Chicago Cubs fans. Maya had to admit, Will was nothing if not thorough in his research; while his deliberate manipulation of these two innocent men still caused a lump of distaste to lodge in her throat, she also admired his cleverness in concocting such schemes. She wondered if that was all training or partially innate talent.

The problem was, Will had explained to her over a steaming deep-dish sausage-and-pepperoni pie, he knew absolutely nothing about baseball. In three weeks, he needed to master the rules, memorize the history of the Cubs, and watch enough games to develop a "feel" (as he put it) for the excitement of the sport.

_Covers are made in the details…_

Preparing to close for the evening, Maya mused wryly that if Will actually was her live-in boyfriend, their relationship would be following a time-tested trajectory: Instead of taking her out every night, he would now be parked on her couch drinking beer and watching ballgames.

Well, maybe that was for the best. Maybe it would make her a little less attracted to him. Although, he would look cute in a baseball cap…

Smiling to herself, Maya stepped from behind the counter to flip the front sign to "closed." At that moment, however, the door swung inward, the heavy bell above it clanging ominously, and Maya froze as three men entered her store.

Andy Pruitt. And two of his younger brothers.

All three young men were burly and greasy, hoodlums through and through: barrel chests, thick necks, whiskered cheeks, lank black hair, filthy clothes. Maya instinctively moved behind the counter, as if that would offer her some protection from whatever they intended to do to her.

She doubted it was a coincidence that Pruitt was showing up today, the first time Will had not accompanied her to work, when Margot had warned her over a week ago that Pruitt was back in town. No, Andy Pruitt never had liked a fair fight. He would much rather corner a woman alone than face even one man, despite having two brothers to back him up.

Maya glanced at the telephone beside the cash register, mentally calculating how long it would take to dial 911. In the next instant, however, she dismissed the thought: Will had said no trouble. She couldn't involve the police in this; she would have to deal with it herself.

"Hello, Maya," Pruitt drawled, approaching the counter. One brother – she thought his name was Ricky, the other's Chuck, but they all looked and acted so much alike (like big, stupid apes) that it was difficult to tell them apart – turned her sign to "closed" and secured the deadbolt on the front door.

Maya's blood turned to ice in her veins. She was trembling from head to toe and knew her fear was obvious; the leering smirk on Pruitt's ugly face told her how much he was enjoying her terror. She hated giving him the satisfaction, but she couldn't help it – she was locked in with three men who in all probability intended to do her some serious harm.

"Been expecting us?" Pruitt asked as he came around the counter, not stopping until he had her backed against the wall.

Maya fought to keep her voice even. "You shouldn't be here, Andy. The sheriff knows all about you threatening me – hell, the whole town does. Do you think he won't be watching my store, looking for an excuse to arrest you?"

Pruitt caught both of Maya's wrists and squeezed them so tightly she cried out in pain. He forced her arms up beside her head, pinning her body to the wall with his. The smell of tobacco and whiskey on his breath made her want to gag.

"We won't take long," Pruitt rasped in her ear. "But I figure you owe me a little somethin', Maya, for two years on the inside."

Reserves of inner strength she wasn't aware she possessed suddenly surged through Maya. If this asshole thought she would meekly submit to rape, he had another thought coming.

Wrenching one wrist out of his grasp, Maya slashed her fingernails down the side of Pruitt's face. He yelped and released her; seeing her chance, Maya started for the back exit, through her office and the stockroom. She had hardly taken a step, however, when Chuck seized her roughly around the waist from behind and drug her, kicking and squirming, back into the front room.

Pruitt's eyes bulged with fury as he advanced on her. Arms trapped at her sides by Chuck's vice-like embrace, Maya couldn't even throw up her hands to defend herself when Pruitt back-handed across the face hard enough to set her ears ringing.

"Bitch," he snarled, "I was just gonna fuck you. Now I'm gonna make it hurt."

"Don't be stupid!" Maya blurted out the first thing that crossed her mind, her heart hammering so violently she feared she might faint. Her breath came in short, rapid bursts. "You're about to commit sexual assault when you're on parole for making meth? They'll send you away for life!"

Her words gave Pruitt pause. Maya stared at him, seeing the wheels turn slowly in his dense redneck brain, trying to work out whether she had a point. Chuck continued to hold her so tightly she thought her ribs might break, but Maya wasn't really afraid of the younger boys. True to their clan mentality, they would do nothing without orders from their older brother.

"Okay, Maya," Pruitt relented at length, nodding for Chuck to release her. She stumbled forward to grasp the counter, shaking so badly she could hardly stand. "But I still say you owe me somethin', so how's 'bout you open this safe and we'll see about settling your debt?"

"How's 'bout you get the fuck away from her?"

Will's voice from the hallway behind her caused Maya to almost jump out of her skin. "Will!" she cried, automatically running to his side. In her panic she forgot to call him Daniel, though she decided to worry about the repercussions of that later.

Will caught her fingers and gently pulled her around behind him, establishing himself as a shield between her and danger. Maya's instant relief changed to cold dread as the three Pruitt brothers fanned out in a loose line behind her counter, forming a menacing wall of muscle. She realized that Will was a spy, which she assumed meant he knew how to fight, but training or not, he was one relatively small man facing three veritable giants.

"Please, let's just go," she pleaded in a whisper. She tugged on Will's hand, wanting more than anything to dash for the back door.

Will's feet remained firmly planted. He was the picture of serenity as Pruitt sneered, "Who's the midget, Maya?"

Ricky snickered. "Yeah, small fry," he challenged Will. "What you gon' do, bite our ankles?"

"We don't want trouble," Will replied smoothly. His response reminded Maya of another complication to this predicament: Will could be risking his mission, and thereby the wrath of his employers, to rescue her.

_Please, let's just go, Will, please…_

"Yeah, I'll bet you don't," Pruitt chuckled, taking a threatening step forward. Will stood his ground. "But guess what, pretty boy? You got trouble, 'cause I'm about to kick your scrawny ass. And then I'm gonna get me a piece of your girlfriend's ass, and you can watch."

Maya shrieked as Pruitt lunged at Will, who shoved her backwards down the hallway while stepping forward to meet his attacker head-on. Falling against the doorway, Maya wanted to shut her eyes, to block out what was about to happen to Will, but she found she couldn't bring herself to look away.

Seconds later, she was gaping in astonishment.

Will was a lethal force. The Pruitt brothers had size and brute strength going for them, yet they looked like bumbling oafs snatching at Will, whose speed, agility and prowess easily proved more than they could handle. Oh, he took some fierce punches, to be sure – including one that snapped his head back and sent him reeling into a table full of books, drawing a scream from Maya. Will recovered quickly, however, delivering a brutal kick to Chuck's midsection that sent him sprawling.

That was really the only moment in the fight when Will appeared to be in any danger of losing. While everything seemed to occur in slow motion and to last forever in Maya's mind, she would realize later that the fight was over in around five minutes.

With Chuck on the ground clutching his chest, where Will's foot had connected solidly with his diaphragm, and Ricky slumped against the wall pinching off a steady flow of blood from his shattered nose, Pruitt made one last, desperate offensive: He squared his broad shoulders and ducked his head, charging bull-like straight at Will.

Lifting his right palm, Will slammed the heel of his hand into Pruitt's mouth, the force of the bigger man's inertia tripling the intensity of the blow. Maya cringed as blood spattered the wall and teeth scattered across the floor.

Pruitt collapsed in a moaning heap, pressing his hands to his jaw, which was probably broken.

Will turned from the scene of the carnage long enough to glance back at Maya. "You okay?" he inquired, slightly out of breath. Blood trickled down his cheek from a gash below his right eye, and his palm was bleeding freely from where Pruitt's front teeth had sliced across it. Otherwise, he looked none the worse for the brief battle.

"Fine," Maya managed to say between numb lips.

"Good. Excuse me for just a second."

Maya watched, half in horror and half in fascination, as Will grasped the front of Pruitt's shirt, hauled the bigger man to his feet, and bent him backwards over the counter. Practically nose to nose with his enemy, Will spoke in a cold, stony voice that Maya had never heard him use before.

"Listen up, you piece of shit," Will ordered Pruitt, who was staring up at him in wide-eyed terror. "You're walking out of here tonight because I don't feel like going to all the trouble of burying you and your inbred brothers here. But I want to be sure we understand each other before I let you go."

From the waistband of his jeans, Will produced a combat knife. Maya gasped and Pruitt whimpered as Will lay the shiny, wickedly-sharp blade against the other man's throat.

"I know pricks like you," Will went on in that same, deathly-quiet voice. "You got your pride hurt tonight because somebody half your size kicked your stupid redneck ass. And after your bitch mother cleans you up, you're gonna start thinking about payback. I'm gonna do you a favor and tell you why you don't want to go that route."

_Because you have a huge goddamn knife to his jugular, maybe?_

"You spent time on the inside, right?"

Pruitt nodded the tiniest bit in response to Will's question, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he choked and gurgled on the blood filling his mangled mouth.

"Then I'm guessing you've heard of Pedro Fernandez and Enrique Suarez, from Miami?"

Pruitt paled. So did his brothers, who were staring dumbly at the man who had just wiped the floor with them during a three-on-one attack.

Will smiled cruelly. "Yeah, I figured you would have. That's who I work for, you ignorant son of a bitch, and that's whose protection Maya is under. So you keep that in mind if you start thinking you'd like to come after either one of us, mmkay?"

"You-you got it," Pruitt spluttered thickly, flecks of blood flying off his lips. "S-s-sorry, Maya," he added over Will's shoulder.

Maya had no clue who Pedro Fernandez and Enrique Suarez were, but they must have been fearsome indeed to elicit an apology from Andy Pruitt.

The injured brothers helped one another limp out the front door of Maya's shop and down the now-dark sidewalk a few moments later. After they left, Maya stood in stunned silence for a full minute, trying to process what she had just witnessed.

Only soldiers could fight like Will, she thought. Soldiers trained in hand-to-hand combat. Soldiers skilled at quick kills. Soldiers accustomed to intimidating people twice their size. Was that who Will really was, then – a soldier? Some sort of Navy Seal, perhaps?

She knew he wouldn't tell her, though, so she didn't bother to ask. Instead, she said, sincerely, "Thank you, Will."

"Don't mention it." Replacing books that had been knocked to the floor during the scuffle onto a small table beside the window, Will appeared completely unphased by what had transpired. "Just glad I got here when I did."

His off-handed comment raised an interesting question in Maya's mind. Walking over to him on still-trembling legs, she asked suspiciously, "How did you happen to come along just now? I thought you were out at the house."

Will shrugged, his face reflecting complete innocence. "I fixed up that old bike in your shed and drove myself in. Did you know there was a perfectly good motorcycle out there going to rust, by the way?"

"It was Jericho's. And don't change the subject."

Will's grin told her that was precisely what he had been attempting to do. "Okay," he confessed, with the air of a man who knew resistance was futile. "I had a feeling that if this Pruitt guy was really gunning for you, he'd wait until he thought he had you alone to make his move. So I followed you into town this morning, and I've been hanging out in that old gas station down the street – the one that's all boarded up, you know – to see if he'd try anything."

Maya stared at Will in consternation. "You've been spying on me?"

"Just for today," he assured her hastily. "Just to see if the guy would show up or not. I started over here as soon as I saw them come in the front door. I circled around the back, to get the element of surprise and all that."

She didn't know whether to be furious with him for the deceit or grateful that he had taken such pains to protect her. In the end, gazing into his beautiful blue-green eyes and remembering how bravely he had faced three much larger men on her behalf, Maya decided Will could be her hero any day.

"Let's clean you up," she declared, taking his hand and leading him into the bathroom next to her office.

It was not lost on Maya that this was the second time in twenty-four hours that Will had needed medical attention. Was his life always this dangerous, she wondered, or was this operation a special circumstance?

Running water over some papertowels, Maya dabbed at the gash below Will's eye. "I've never seen Andy Pruitt look so scared," she remarked, unable to suppress a smirk at the memory of the coward's true face coming to light. "Those were some pretty impressive moves, by the way."

"Not bad for a 'small fry,' huh?" Will grinned, looking cocky.

"You're also a small fry with a bum leg, as I recall. How'd the stitches hold up during all of that?"

Maya was proud of herself for being able to discuss Will's injuries so calmly. She loathed the sight of blood; it wasn't the blood itself so much as the fact that someone had been hurt, she supposed. Particularly when the 'someone' was a person she cared for, blood tended to make her nauseous.

Will kicked his leg against the sink as if testing its strength. "Okay, I think," he assured her. "It doesn't hurt. That does," he added, wincing as Maya daubed peroxide onto his cut.

"Sorry, but I don't want this to get infected. Hold still," she commanded when he flinched away.

"Is this your idea of looking after me?" Will sounded pouty. "I think I'd rather take care of myself..."

Maya sighed. Men, even spies, could be such babies, she reflected.

Finishing up with the gash, Maya considered whether or not she should ask the question that was devouring her thoughts now that they were out of danger. She didn't want to goad Will into another argument; he had warned her – twice, actually – about asking too many questions.

In the end, curiosity got the better of her. Trying to sound casual, she asked, "Who were those people you mentioned, anyway? The ones you said you worked for?"

_Like he's going to tell me…_

To Maya's surprise, Will answered readily, "They're part of a Colombian drug cartel. They work mostly in Miami, but they run some drugs up here in the Northeast. Guns, too. I figured if Pruitt had been in prison, he'd heard of their organization, and he'd know it was one he didn't want to mess with."

Maya's hand stilled on Will's cheek. Her mouth had gone painfully dry. "You-you work for a…for a Colombian drug cartel?"

Will laughed. "No, Maya, I don't work for a Colombian drug cartel," he replied good-naturedly. "I was undercover with their organization for a while, put a few of them and their associates away. That's how I know about them."

Taking in her surprise, he challenged playfully, "What? You thought all I did was run around pulling frame jobs? I do put bad guys away, Maya."

"Good to know," she rejoined, refusing to feel guilty for her surprise. Everything she had seen out of Will's employers so far suggested that they were the bad guys; she didn't think she should be expected to believe otherwise, regardless of Will's devotion to them.

As she reached into the cabinet above his head for a box of bandages, meaning to patch up the cut on his palm, Maya saw Will's eyes lock on her wrist. Five finger-shaped bruises were already forming there, where Pruitt had so roughly held onto her.

Will's face darkened. He gently folded her hand in his, brushing his thumb over the bruises. "Did he hurt you?" he demanded, searching Maya's eyes. By his tone, Maya knew Will meant more than physically.

Recalling Pruitt's breath on her face, Maya shuddered. "No," she replied honestly. "He wanted to, but he didn't get that far."

"Son of a bitch." Will's fury was contained but unmistakable. "I should've slit the bastard's throat. Or castrated him. I still can, if you want me to…"

Now it was Maya's turn to laugh. "What happened to staying out of trouble and lying low, huh?"

"Yeah, well, some things are worth the risk," Will muttered.

His words hung in the air between them. Indeed, some things were worth the risk…

Maya's heart sped up again, only this time, her fluttering pulse had nothing to do with fear – it had everything to do with Will's stormy eyes, his parted lips, his musky scent, his gentle fingers holding her wrist. He was eyeing her mouth in a way Maya found indescribably sexy. But she knew, no matter how badly he wanted to, Will wouldn't make the first move – he was too controlled, too well-trained. So she took over, leaning toward him, seeing the same fire in his eyes that she knew was burning in hers.

Her eyelids drifted shut as she waited for their lips to meet. She wondered if he would be tender, or passionate, or some amazing combination of the two –

"Maya."

She opened her eyes to find Will, with an obvious effort, turning away. Maya felt color rise in her cheeks as she stepped back, the sting of rejection striking her to the core.

"This isn't going to happen," Will tabled firmly, letting go of her wrist and folding his arms across his chest.

Maya was so humiliated she wanted to cry. How could she have been so bold? Why had she put herself out there to be turned down?

"Right." Her voice sounded clipped and wounded to her own ears; she wished, not for the first time, that she could be as cool and detached as Will. "It's fine. I'm sorry."

"Don't be like that, please." The genuine hurt in Will's voice brought Maya back around to face him. He reached for her hands again, drawing her in close, his expression reflecting the turmoil raging within her as well.

Sighing, he seemed to search for the right words. "Maya, when I say we can't do this, that's what I mean – we can't. It's against the rules."

The rules. The goddamn rules, made by these goddamn people he worked for. At that moment, Maya could have screamed in frustration: Was any part of her life her own anymore?

"Why would your employers care if we're together?" Maya didn't disbelieve Will; she simply didn't understand. "How does that affect your mission? Are you supposed to be married or something?"

_Oh God, maybe he is married…_

"No, it's nothing to do with that." Will lifted one hand to her cheek, frowning with concern at the handprint-bruise blooming there. "It's about keeping you safe, Maya. You don't realize how precarious your situation is."

Needles of fear pricked Maya's skin, making her shudder. "Safe from who? From the people you work for?"

Will confirmed this with a nod. "You have to know that my employers are not entirely comfortable with a civilian knowing as much as you know about what we do," he insisted.

Maya was almost ashamed to admit that this had never occurred to her. They had recruited her, she hadn't sought them out, so she had assumed they trusted her to keep their dirty little secrets.

"Right now, some analyst somewhere is popping antacids by the handful just thinking about how deep you're into this. One anonymous phone call to a reporter, one email to the Justice Department, and it could all be over for them – that's the kind of power you've got. Trust me, Maya, these people don't share power easily."

"So why bring me into this in the first place?" she queried, baffled by the logic. "I mean, it's not like I'm anybody special or integral to this mission of yours. I'm just convenient."

"Yes, Maya, you're convenient," Will agreed patiently, "but you're more than convenient – you're controllable. That's what's keeping you safe, don't you see? The people with the real power, the ones who decide what happens to both you and I, right now they see you as predictable. They've watched you for three years. You haven't spoken to anyone about the deal you made with them; you haven't tried to run or disappear or anything. You've behaved exactly as they expected you to, and that gives them confidence that you can be managed.

"But the moment you become unpredictable," Will continued, his grip on her fingers tightening ever so slightly, "then you're a threat to them. And they will end that threat, Maya. I've seen them do it before."

A full-body shuddered coursed through Maya. "And getting involved with you," she pressed, wanting to be clear about what Will was telling her. "That would make me unpredictable?"

"Love is about the most unpredictable emotion in the world, Maya."

_Love._

Had Will just intimated that he loved her? Or that he thought she loved him?

Maya had no time to consider that question before he continued, "If you and I were to get involved, and things were to go badly between us, you might decide to take your revenge on me by exposing what I do. That's how their logic would go, anyway. They couldn't afford to run that risk. So, like I said, they would take steps to silence you, to make sure you didn't get the chance to talk."

"You mean they would kill me."

The evenness of her voice surprised Maya. Perhaps she was, as she had told Will a week ago, beginning to understand how his world worked. The more she saw of it, she thought angrily, the less she liked it. The worse she wanted out of it.

Part of Maya wanted to rail against Will's warning, to rage that she would _not _act the role of the submissive victim, asking no questions and making no sudden moves. She restrained herself for two reasons. One, Will had not landed her in this mess; she had landed herself in it by agreeing to that lawyer's terms three years ago, when what she should have done was take her chances with the justice system, so she wasn't going to lash out at Will over her own stupidity. And two, Maya knew her words would be nothing more than so much bluster; she didn't want to die, and she wasn't going to give Will's employers a reason to want her dead.

Will's eyes were locked onto hers. "Yes, Maya," he answered, rather hoarsely. "I mean they would kill you. And I can't – I won't – let that happen."

So he did care about her. That's what he was telling her, with his somber eyes and his grave pronouncement: He cared about her; therefore, he couldn't be with her.

Well, since everything else about the situation she was in here was unfair, Maya supposed it was only fitting that she should start to fall in love for the first time with the one guy on the planet who was absolutely off-limits to her. She imagined the Fates were enjoying a good laugh over this one.

"I understand," Maya told him, meaning it. "I don't like it, but I understand."

Will pulled her in close and rested his forehead against hers. "I'm sorry for all of this, Maya," he said, sounding anguished. "I wish things were different. I really do."

Maya could see no point in torturing herself with fantasies of what might have been, or in dragging out this intimate moment that could never, if she wanted to survive, go anywhere.

Stepping back, she forced a smile onto her face. "Maybe someday things will be different," she offered brightly, not knowing what else to tell him or herself.

Will nodded. "Maybe," he agreed.

But Maya had come to know Will Traveler well enough to see that he didn't really believe that. She understood, because neither did she.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

"**The Inner Circle"**

For his last three weeks in Deer Harbor, Will privately vowed, he would keep his nose clean. No more fights with the locals. No more arguments with Maya.

No more – absolutely no more – romantic interludes with his asset.

It was time to buckle down and do his job. Will felt as if his feet had been knocked out from under him upon first meeting Maya; he seemed to have been slipping and sliding along ever since, unable to regain his balance. That had to stop. He had to find his footing, get his head on straight before showing up in New Haven.

Joseph had warned him that the Partners would be watching this operation closely. Will didn't intend to blow his big chance of moving up in the world by going soft over a girl.

But what a girl she was.

During the two weeks that followed his showdown with the Pruitt brothers, Will kept his promise to himself: He steadfastly maintained a perfectly professional demeanor during all contact with Maya. She seemed to understand his reserve and treated him with a similarly polite reticence. Outwardly, nothing much changed: They still ate together, fished together (Will was slowly becoming a decent fisherman), cooked together, swam together, read together. A close observer, however, would have seen that these activities were now laced with an underlying tension that loaded every accidental touch, every sideways glance, with potential meanings neither dared explore.

He would not fall in love with Maya Sanders, Will commanded himself daily, staring hard at his reflection in the mirror above his bathroom sink, his hair wet and skin damp from the shower. Even if he sometimes became so lost in thoughts of her that he finished his six-mile morning run in as little as twenty-eight minutes, not even noticing the intensity of his pace. Even if he sometimes missed her so badly during the day he lifted the phone off its hook and toyed with the possibility of calling her, just to say hello. Even if he had to force himself to stay put at the kitchen table in the evenings when her car pulled into the drive, instead of hurrying to the door to greet her like a well-trained pup.

Maya was not the type of woman he had pictured himself with, anyway – "he," in this case, being Daniel Taft, whom the young man often thought of as, if not his real self, at least his inescapable alter-ego. It was Daniel Taft, Hometown agent, who had a vested interest in this particular mission's success; it was his future, because Will Traveler did not (technically) have a future, on the line.

Daniel Taft could admit that Maya was sweet, smart, beautiful and fun, the kind of girl he would have considered for a summer fling, if he was bored and lonely. But she was not glamorous or sophisticated or cultured, not like Sela Langdon, the woman who always came to mind when Daniel Taft pictured his ideal mate. Not that Daniel was in love with Sela – far from it; she was more like a surrogate mother. But for him, she represented in part the inner circle of money, power and privilege he desperately wanted to enter.

A woman like Sela could thrive in the world a man like Daniel Taft inhabited. A woman like Maya, on the other hand, would drown there, weighed down by the viciousness, the deceit, the secrecy.

So Will would not fall in love with Maya. He was determined about that.

Two weeks passed quite uneventfully in the Sanders household, each day bringing Will closer to the moment when his mission would begin in earnest. He was already living as Will Traveler, of course; after three weeks of constant practice, constant attention to detail, the young man was comfortable inhabiting that persona. He was ready.

With Maya to confirm that the details fit with Deer Harbor, Will had generated a plausibly simple background for himself. Will Traveler, chemical engineering graduate student at Yale, was twenty-three, born July 22 to Nathan and Brenda Traveler. He had spent his entire life in Deer Harbor, graduating sixth out of a senior class of sixty-eight – a class that had voted him "Most Likely to Succeed" in its yearbook, recognizing his quiet, bookish, science-nerd nature. As a child and adolescent, Will had been well-liked but not popular; athletic but not involved in sports; smart but not a teacher's pet; mischievous but not mean-spirited.

Will thought those qualities made for a good balance between Burchell's all-American appeal and Fog's bad-boy persona: He would be neither too rebellious for Burchell nor too angelic for Fog.

Will Traveler's family history was a bit more complicated, necessarily so for purposes of the mission. Brenda, a nurse, had run off with the doctor she worked for not long after Will's seventh birthday; she now lived in Washington state with her new husband and new children and had little to no contact with her eldest child, by mutual agreement. Nathan, a third-grade teacher, had raised his son by himself after Brenda's adulterous departure; father and son had been the best of friends, relying on and taking care of one another.

Money was tight in the Traveler household, as it was in most Deer Harbor families, yet Nathan had insisted upon Will attending college. So at eighteen, on a half-tuition academic scholarship, Will had left Deer Harbor for the first time in his life to study chemistry at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, a small, private liberal arts school located a few hours away. Sadly, tragedy had struck six months into Will's freshman year: While ice-fishing with friends, Nathan had accidentally drowned. Nathan's life insurance and savings had made it possible for his son to finish college; with nothing tying him to Deer Harbor any longer, after finishing at Bates, Will, encouraged by his undergraduate professors to continue his education, had enrolled at Yale.

Maya had said very little when Will laid out this part of the cover story for her a week ago. She had told him in rather clipped tones where his father would probably have gone ice-fishing in Maine in February (near Skowhegan, she said, on the Kennebec River). Beyond that, she had made no comment, and Will, holding to his private vow not to argue anymore with her, had not pressed for her opinion of the story.

The New Haven assignment called for something less than the picture-perfect Traveler family for a few reasons. First off, if his parents were around Will would have been expected to produce them, or at least correspondence from them, to avoid arousing his roommates' suspicions, so killing off one of them and estranging himself from the other ultimately simplified his cover.

More importantly, though, Will's anger at his mother and grief over the loss of his father was intended to make his roommates identify with him. Tyler Fog did not have a healthy relationship with either one of his parents, who had been divorced for years. He believed his mother had selfishly abandoned him to a father who, in Tyler's opinion, only saw him as a disappointment; since Carlton Fog had recently closed off the family purse strings to his eldest son, Tyler obviously had on-going daddy issues. Likewise, Jay Burchell hardly spoke to his mother. He felt she had not stood by his father during the nasty court martial proceedings which contributed to Colonel Burchell's severe depression (and eventually resulted in his suicide when Jay was fifteen). A heartless mother and a dead father were fairly safe avenues to common ground with his targets, Will felt.

Besides, as Joseph had once advised him, covers should always reflect as much of the truth as possible. Abandonment by his mother and the loss of a beloved father hit a lot closer to the mark for the young man portraying Will Traveler than a Brady Bunch childhood would have.

As usual, Will had relayed his cover story to Joseph via encrypted email messages as soon as he and Maya worked out the details. Joseph's staff took care of the necessary paperwork, like family photos (digitally created, of course), divorce judgments, school transcripts, property deeds, birth certificates, utility bills, immunization records, driver's licenses, death certificates… Essentially, anything Will might have needed to back up his story was created and stored by his handler.

The paperwork served primarily as a precaution. If Will did his job well, the hope was that no one would ask the sorts of questions that would require him to produce evidence of his identity, beyond what was needed for official channels like enrolling at Yale, of course. Better safe than sorry, though, that was Hometown's motto.

By the beginning of his last week in Deer Harbor, Will was confident that everything was in place for his official transformation. With the afternoon sun riding high in the sky, he whistled to himself while he carefully followed Maya's instructions for starting dinner – she usually left a note taped to the fridge explaining how to defrost hamburger or marinate chicken, so they could eat sooner and get to work faster once she made it home. Tonight, his orders were to dice up celery for a dressing she planned to make.

When his cell phone rang, Will started so suddenly he sliced his finger. Turning to stare at his backpack, he suddenly realized that it had been three weeks since he had heard from Joseph. That in and of itself wasn't odd; while undercover, Will often went months with no contact from anyone inside Hometown, other than acknowledgements that his reports were being received. No, what was odd was that he had almost forgotten that he would be contacted, eventually.

A warning sounded deep inside Will. Four years ago, Alex had cautioned him that the operatives who either went rogue or switched sides almost always related that their decisions to betray the program had begun with an inability to separate their jobs – what they were undercover to accomplish – from the personas they had created, from the fictions they were living. Once they lost their objectivity, they became unable to distinguish fact from fabrication, to return to their real identities as Hometown agents.

To become so caught up in the role he was playing that he would not have been expecting, seven days out from the start of an incredibly important mission, a phone call from his handler – that wasn't like Will. And it concerned him.

In fact, Will was beginning to wonder if he had been too confident in his readiness for this kind of mission. Recalling his handler's reluctance in assigning him to the task, Will feared that Joseph might have foreseen some crucial weakness in him that would spell disaster for the mission. Of course, Will consoled himself, if Joseph had really believed him incapable of handling such a cover, he would never have consented to Will's involvement in the operation. After all, Joseph's loyalties were first and foremost to the Partners, not to his operative.

Nevertheless, Will made a mental note to be more aware that he was playing a role, to not become too comfortable with life as Will Traveler. On his previous two missions, such distance had been easy to achieve because he had despised both fictional personas. But he liked Will Traveler. More to the point, he liked _being _Will Traveler. And that, Will recognized, could cause serious problems down the road if he didn't keep himself in check.

Drying his hands on a dish towel and sucking blood from the end of his index finger, Will slipped the cell phone out of his backpack (tossed haphazardly, as always, beside the couch, neatness not being a big concern of Will's). "Hello?" he said into the receiver, holding pressure on his cut with the towel.

"Will!" Joseph sounded jovial – over-the-top jovial, actually. "Good to hear your voice again. You got a minute to talk?"

Will knew that was code for, _"We have business to tend to that's for your ears only, so go somewhere private, now."_

"I'm alone. The asset is at her store," Will replied, shifting automatically into the cool, professional tone that characterized Daniel Taft. He knew Joseph would continue calling him "Will" – it helped operatives respond readily to their new names if they weren't always switching back to old ones – but he also knew that Joseph would expect to be talking to Daniel.

"Good." Joseph's voice became serious, no longer hearty now that he knew Will wouldn't have to pretend this was a personal call. "I have all your documents ready, including your course schedule and housing ticket for Yale, which you're going to need before you get to New Haven, obviously. I'd like you to come down here to the house tomorrow to pick them up."

Will recognized an order when he heard one. It never occurred to him to disobey; nonetheless, he found the request strange. Joseph had never insisted on hand-delivering documents for a cover to him before. Was his handler looking for an excuse to observe him before the mission officially began, to double-check that Will was ready to complete this high-priority assignment?

Despite his doubts of moments before, Will was no less determined to see the operation through. That fact alone buoyed his confidence: He had retained enough of himself, and sufficient consciousness of that self, to still want both his revenge and his reward. If he was still thinking that way, Will reasoned, then he wasn't thinking of himself as Will Traveler, but rather as an operative playing a character.

_If Joseph wants to see for himself that my head's in the game, so be it. I've got nothing to hide._

"Sounds good," Will agreed readily, concealing any suspicion about his handler's motives behind a veneer of unquestioning obedience. "What should I tell the girl?"

"The truth. Tell her you're doing necessary mission prep in New York, and you'll be gone overnight."

"And travel arrangements?"

"A car will pick you up from the girl's house at a quarter to eight in the morning. You'll fly from a private airfield nearby to New York. You should be back in Deer Harbor before breakfast on Saturday."

After he hung up, Will slapped a Band-Aid on his finger, finished the dinner preparations and resumed studying thermodynamics, trying all the while to put Joseph's possible reasons for wanting a face-to-face meet out of his mind. Will was surprised by how fascinating chemical engineering was turning out to be; the more he learned about it, the more interesting it became. However, he found it difficult to concentrate with worries about his future with Hometown swirling in his head.

At last, Maya's car pulled into the drive. Will hastily gathered up his books and papers and deposited them into his bookbag so they could eat dinner at the table.

His days with Maya had settled into a comfortable routine, one Will suspected he would miss once he left for New Haven. He had been secretly wondering if Maya would miss him being there, or if she was anxious to return to her life without a houseguest – and a perpetual reminder of her deal with Hometown – underfoot.

He received something of an answer to that question later that evening when he announced his departure the next morning. Maya immediately looked crestfallen, although "oh" was the only comment she made.

They were sitting on the couch, Will at one end with his bare feet propped on the coffeetable, Maya at the other with her long legs stretched toward him, her feet in his lap. Will was giving her a foot-massage, a nightly ritual they both enjoyed; it was basically the only time they touched without experiencing overpowering awkwardness anymore. The collection of Edgar Allan Poe short stories he had just finished reading from lay open on the floor.

"So," Maya continued after a minute, studying her fingernails, "you're staying there until you leave for New Haven, I guess?"

"No, nothing like that," Will hastened to assure her. His heart did a funny flip-flop at the notion that Maya wanted him to stick around. "I'll be back early Saturday morning. You're not getting rid of me that easy," he added teasingly.

Maya seized a throw pillow and tossed it playfully at Will's head. "You know that's not what I meant," she rejoined. "You know I don't want you to go."

A charged silence fell immediately, accompanied by one of their (increasingly-familiar) long, meaningful looks. The stillness screamed with all they were not permitted to say.

Will's heart pounded in his chest. His feelings for Maya seemed to stir a physical reaction in him not so dissimilar to what he experienced just before a fight – except he couldn't seem to maintain the same level-headed clarity when confronting his emotions about her that he could when facing off against an attacker.

_You go down this path and you'll be in danger for real – and so will she. So say good night, now, and go to bed._

"Well." Will stood, shattering the silence, severing the connection between them. He stretched, deliberately exaggerating a yawn. "I've got a long day tomorrow, so…I'll probably be gone before you wake up. See you Saturday?"

Maya nodded without looking at him. "Have a safe trip."

Will slept poorly that night, partly because each time he closed his eyes he pictured Maya asleep in the room across the hall (wearing, in his mind, not much of anything) and partly because his brain insisted on running through scenarios in which Joseph pulled him from this operation. By the time his alarm went off at five and he headed out for his daily run, Will was exhausted from the effort of trying to rest.

He managed to nap on the flight from Maine to New York. Hometown treated their operatives well: Instead of a crappy little Cessna, Will was flown in a private jet, complete with a fully-stocked mini-bar (which he didn't touch, because he wanted to be on his toes for the meeting) and a coquettish flight attendant named Micki who probably would have served him more than Pepsi if he'd asked (which he didn't, because that wasn't his style). Will speculated that these small touches were most likely aimed at operatives, such as himself, whose ambitions rivaled their patriotism.

The Langdon household proved to be in something of an uproar when Will arrived around midday. Greeting him at the front door, Sela announced that Darian had managed to get herself suspended for cutting class to – of all things – purchase cigarettes the day before. As Sela told Will (whom she called Daniel, of course, since she didn't – or at least wasn't supposed to – know of Will Traveler's existence), having a sulking teenager in the house couldn't have happened at a worse time, for Sela was preparing to cater a 700-guest wedding the next day and did not have time to act as Darian's warden. That, she explained as she showed him down the hall to Joseph's study (Will caught a glimpse of Darian slouched on the living room sofa with a math textbook open in her lap), was why Will was meeting with Joseph at the house instead of his office: He had stayed home to keep Darian in line so Sela could make enough lobster quiche and turtle-cheesecake to feed a small army.

"Ever think about having kids?" Joseph asked Will wearily, ushering him in and closing the office door against the hustle and bustle in the other part of the house.

Will shrugged. "Not really, no."

"Well, if you do, think long and hard," Joseph advised grimly. He waved Will into one of the chairs in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the backyard. "Or at least consider sending them to military school when they hit puberty."

In spite of his trepidation about the meeting, Will laughed. He liked Joseph and Sela, and their little family, so much. "Darian'll grow out of this," he assured his handler, feeling more like Daniel Taft by the second – luxurious surroundings were not Will Traveler's natural habitat, after all. "You should've seen me at fifteen. My dad wanted to kill me half the time."

"Yes, well, teenage daughters are a different beast entirely. Sam pulls something like this, I just tan his hide. Darian…" Joseph shook his head helplessly. "Sela says I'm soft, but what can I do? She's my baby girl."

Will smiled sympathetically. He couldn't help wondering if, someday, he would have a conversation like this with his own operative, and fondly remember the life-advice he had received from Joseph.

"Now," Joseph's tone and expression indicated that it was time to get down to business, "Will, I called you here because we've had a special request from the Partners. Jack Freed has asked to speak with you, privately."

Momentarily speechless, Will finally managed to ask, "Why?"

Will had not seen or spoken to Jack Freed in the four and a half years since his father's funeral. That Freed, now the Director of Operations Coordination for the Department of Homeland Security (a fancy way of saying the guy who knew everything the FBI, NSA, ATF, CIA and so on knew, and who to some extent told them what to do), would choose this week to renew their acquaintance struck Will as ominous. He couldn't help feeling a little bit like Robert Redford in _Three Days of the Condor _when he realized his bosses wanted him dead but couldn't figure out why.

_Relax. Freed doesn't do that kind of dirty work personally. And anyway, having a crush on an asset isn't a terminable offense…_

"Director Freed doesn't always tell me everything," Joseph was saying, as Will ordered himself to focus. Joseph's words suggested that he disliked this meeting between Freed and his operative; he didn't seem particularly worried about it, though, just perturbed, which Will took as some measure of reassurance that neither his life nor his job were in jeopardy. "He just asked me to bring you here and establish a secure network connection so he can speak to you from D.C."

Will nodded to show he understood. "Anything I ought to know beforehand?" he prompted, discreetly signaling Joseph that if he was supposed to keep Freed out of the loop on any assignment details, he needed to know what those were.

But Joseph shook his head. "I got the impression this is more of a personal conversation than anything work-related," he admitted. "I, uh, well…"

Joseph seemed to be considering if he should say what was on his mind; in the end, he apparently decided it was worth the risk. Leaning forward, his brow furrowed, he said, "I think this may be about your father, actually."

Of course. Will chided himself for not making that assumption: Here he was, days away from beginning an operation that directly involved one of the men who probably had a hand in his father's death, and suddenly Freed wanted to chat. It made sense, to someone who knew Freed's sort of man – and Will did.

_This is about covering his bases. The Partners don't want me going after Carlton Fog, so Freed has to make sure I'm prepared to play by the rules. _

_Not a problem. _

Seeing Joseph's concern for him, Will assured his handler, "It's okay. I should have expected this, with Fog involved. So," Will stood, inclining his head toward the computer on Joseph's desk, "are we doing this here, then?"

Joseph confirmed that they were and briefly explained to Will that Freed would contact him over a secure server, where they would speak via web-cam. After seeing Will settled comfortably into the massive, leather-cushioned rolling chair behind his desk, Joseph left, closing the door behind him with a click.

_Time to start the next inning – ready, set, go…_

A moment later, Jack Freed's pale, pinched face appeared on the computer screen. Knowing Joseph's web-cam was projecting his own image into Freed's D.C. office, Will carefully arranged his features into a solemn, respectful mask.

"Hello, Will," Freed greeted him evenly, like Joseph considerately using the young man's current alias so as not to throw him off the mission. "It's been a long time."

Will's polite reply was, "Good afternoon, sir."

As always, Freed appeared careworn: His papery skin had the sort of pasty complexion one saw in those confined to bed with a long illness, and his ice-blue eyes were ringed with dark circles. The man was nearly colorless, Will observed, like the secrets he carried had bleached the life out of him.

Whenever Will pictured his future with Hometown, Freed stood in his mind as the antithesis of what he wanted to be: alone, overburdened, too deeply enmeshed in his own plots to revel in the fine things he could easily afford, in the status he had acquired. In Will's opinion, even a cursory comparison of Joseph Langdon and Jack Freed was enough to prove that being a member of the inner circle was preferable to being enthroned at the top.

Even Daniel Taft's ambitions had limits. Even Daniel Taft wanted a life outside of his work.

"I know this is a busy time for you, Will, so I want to thank you for meeting with me," Freed began, politely pretending that Will had been given a choice in the matter. "I promise to keep this brief. But I thought you should know that some new evidence has come to light regarding your father's death."

Convenient, Will mused sardonically. He was careful not to betray such sarcastic thoughts, however, as he inquired, "What's that, sir?"

Freed steepled his fingers on his desktop and paused to study an open file folder on the desk in front of him, as if reviewing the details. Will didn't buy the performance for a second; he knew Freed had rehearsed this little speech, had planned and memorized every word of it, just like Will would have done in the other man's position.

"Four years ago, I told you that we suspected the plot on Senator Grant's life had been arranged, at least in part, by Carlton Fog," Freed recalled. Will tried not to show impatience with this trip down memory lane; he could never forget that conversation, seeing as how it had been the reason he joined Hometown. "I explained to you at the time that Grant was insisting on Congressional inquiries into bribes at the SEC – pay-offs from wealthy individuals, like Fog, who had been investigated but ultimately cleared of fraud charges."

Will said nothing, only nodded. Until he saw where Freed was going with this, he thought it wisest to say as little as possible.

"The attempted assassination of a sitting US senator is obviously too great an accusation to make lightly, and Carlton Fog unfortunately has friends in high places who watch his back quite carefully," Freed conceded, appearing disgusted at such backroom dealing by government officials. Will suppressed a derisive snort. Freed's career had been built on blackmail and manipulation; he certainly held no moral high ground over Carlton Fog or his well-placed friends.

"That," Freed went on, "is why we've never been able to definitively prove that the shooter, Noah Walls, was working for Fog – we haven't been allowed to investigate Fog thoroughly, and we don't have enough circumstantial evidence to force through the necessary warrants.

"However," Freed scooted closer to the camera, causing Will to instinctively lean in as well, "Walls' cellmate informed us several weeks ago that Walls had let slip that when he gets out of prison, his benefactor is going to set him up for life. He made this assertion while watching a stock report detailing the success of Dante Defense Systems this past quarter."

The company name clicked in Will's mind. "That's part of Fog Industries," he realized. His heart started to beat a bit faster: Maybe this meeting was about a real development in his father's case after all.

Freed nodded, looking like the cat who had caught the canary. "Exactly. So my people in the New York FBI field office did some digging. It seems five years ago, starting six months before your father was gunned down saving Senator Grant's life, a man named Elliot Waters joined the payroll of Dante Defense Systems as a 'consultant.' His employment ended the day of the failed assassination attempt."

The smirk on Freed's face told Will the best was yet to come: "Elliot Waters is a known alias used by Noah Walls."

Will closed his eyes, savoring the taste of victory like sweet wine in his mouth. It was hardly a smoking gun, of course; to a man as powerful as Carlton Fog, such a tenuous connection to a convicted criminal, especially one who had vehemently declared from the moment of his arrest that he had acted entirely alone, was nothing to lose sleep over. Walls' involvement with Dante Defense Systems could be explained in a thousand ways that would leave Fog's name in the clear – the most compelling argument being, obviously, that Fog employed thousands of people, so it was highly unlikely that he would have known one consultant for one company.

Nevertheless, to Will the information was tangible proof that someone besides an anarchy-loving, homophobic whack job had been responsible for his father's death. It was validation of the path Will had, in that other life as his father's devoted son, chosen to follow in order to prevent conspiracies like the attempted assassination of Senator Grant from playing out.

When he opened his eyes, Will found Freed studying him closely. "Thank you, sir," he rasped hoarsely, his throat dry and tight from holding back tears. His grief for the father who had been shot and killed in the line of duty threatened to overwhelm him, but Will knew he had to hold himself together for the duration of this conversation. "Thank you, for telling me."

Freed cleared his throat. "I won't lie to you, Will. Certain individuals – like your handler, for one – thought I should keep this information from you for the time being, lest it affect the operation you're about to undertake."

Ah, the mission. Will had suspected they would come back to that eventually.

Will understood that, as with his debriefs, this conversation was being recorded for analysis. Once again, he allowed himself to completely relax, to speak with unfeigned, unrestrained honesty.

Someday, these people might figure out that he had no intentions of deceiving them. He liked his work, liked his life; he didn't want out.

"Director Freed, sir," Will declared baldly, "I know my job. This operation has nothing to do with my father, or me, or Carlton Fog – at least not personally. The Partners have their reasons for wanting this thing done. That's all I need to know.

"And you should know," he finished firmly, staring unblinkingly into the camera, "that I would never do anything to compromise the success of this or any other operation. I will do my job, sir, exactly as I am instructed to do it – no more, no less."

Obviously pleased with Will's answer, Freed replied smoothly, "I told the Partners you could be counted on. You're a patriot, just like your father was. Now," Freed pushed back slightly in his chair, "we both have work to do, so good luck to you, Will. I hope when this is all over we'll have a chance to talk again – maybe here in Washington, even."

The significance of Freed's suggestion was not lost on Will: To be brought to D.C., to be invited to speak personally with the Director of Operations Coordination, was to be introduced to those in power, to be congratulated and celebrated by those in a position to change his life for the better. It was to take the next step up the ladder.

Trying not to sound too hopeful, Will answered, "I'd like that, sir, very much. Thank you. For everything."

For several long minutes after the screen went dark, Will sat motionless in Joseph's office, swimming through a tidal wave of emotion: elation, that he might soon see his dreams of moving up the ranks of Hometown realized; fury, that Carlton Fog remained so untouchable; grim pleasure, that he would take from Fog as Fog had taken from him; aching sorrow, that his father was gone, unable to share in his son's triumph, because he had fulfilled his own duty, because he had, as Secret Service agents swore to do, sacrificed himself to save Senator Grant.

_I'm serving our country too, Dad. I know you would question my methods, but in the end, the outcome is the same: The American people sleep safely at night because of what I do._

Will knew he shouldn't linger. Joseph would be wondering what was said; Will wanted the opportunity to reassure his handler himself that what Freed had revealed would not make a difference to the New Haven op. Furthermore, if Will knew anything about Sela's dedication as a hostess, she would probably be waiting lunch on him despite her mountain of work.

Standing, almost light-headed from all he had learned and felt in the last fifteen minutes, Will crossed to the door in four quick, long strides and pulled it open.

Darian Langdon, whose ear had been pressed to the other side, toppled into the room.

Will's entire body went cold, as if he had been plunged head to toe into an icy bath. Instinct took over: Seizing the girl by the elbow, he pushed her out of the office (praying the cameras had shut off before her ungraceful entrance) and drug her silently through the living room and up the stairs. He moved so swiftly she didn't even have a chance to protest before he had shoved her into her bedroom and shut the door soundlessly behind them.

_Jesus Christ, what a fucking mess this is going to be…_

Will momentarily considered that Joseph's entire house, not only his home office, might be under surveillance. Just as quickly, he decided not to worry about it: If the Partners were filming everything that went on in the home, Darian was already dead, and nothing he did or said would matter.

"You stupid kid."

Will didn't know when he had last been so angry or so scared. Speaking softly so her parents wouldn't overhear, Will advanced on Darian, who took a frightened step backward toward the bed. "You stupid, stupid, _stupid _kid. What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Seeming to reconsider her retreat, Darian planted her feet and lifted her chin defiantly. "So what?" she challenged haughtily, though Will noticed she moderated the volume of her voice as well. "So I overheard you. It's not like I don't already know what my dad does."

Will sucked in a deep, composing breath, willing his heart to slow down and his mind to stop racing. He took a moment to collect his frantic thoughts, to put together a plan for dealing with this precarious situation.

A year ago when he had passed by Darian's bedroom, Will reflected, the daffodil-yellow carpet and walls, the canopy bed's comforter embroidered with huge daisies, the white-painted wooden bookshelves filled with teen novels and equestrian trophies and science fair ribbons, the posters of movie stars and photos of friends taped to the mirror above her vanity, the shabby-chic white furniture – all these elements had given the impression of an innocent, sunny, intelligent girl living inside the four walls. Now, long sheets of black felt concealed the bright carpet, posters for Nirvana and The Doors and Kid Rock papered the walls, statues of Buddha and books like _The Communist Manifesto _had replaced the trophies and novels, and a giant pentagram painted in blood-red adorned the closet door, behind which Will could see rows of ripped jeans and grungy tee-shirts.

Understanding slowly dawning on him, Will turned his gaze from the room to the girl standing in it. A year ago, she had been tanned and athletic, her arms and legs round with muscle and flesh, her chestnut hair coiled in a thick braid that fell halfway down her back; if a little coltish in the way of a fourteen-year-old about to bloom into womanhood, she had definitely been pretty, the kind of pretty that promised great beauty ahead. Now, she had dyed her hair blue-black, clipped it off in a jagged line at her shoulders, hidden herself indoors until her skin was chalk-white, and starved her body into emaciation.

These changes in attitude and appearance, Will quickly put together, signaled something far more sinister than normal teenage rebellion. At some point during the last twelve months, Darian had either discovered on her own or had been told about Joseph's real work; this one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turnabout in personality was her way of coping with that knowledge, of protesting the charade that was her happy, safe suburban life.

Well, if she knew, she knew. Will's only remaining option was to focus on damage control.

Feeling calmer, he demanded, "Are your parents aware that you know this?" Uncertain of exactly what – or how much – Darian did know, he was deliberately vague.

Darian shook her head. "No."

"And your brother?"

"Like I'd tell that shithead anything?"

So Sam was safe. Will advanced on Darian again; truly Joseph's daughter, she stood her ground, even when he caught her chin and forced her to look up at him.

"Who have you told?" he demanded coldly, deliberately trying to frighten her. He needed honesty, and fear, he had learned, was as good as any truth serum. "Don't you dare lie to me, Darian. I'm not fucking around here. Who have you told?"

Trembling a little, Darian nevertheless answered strongly, "I haven't told anyone, Daniel. Or Will. Or whatever your name is."

Darian's refusal to look at him on his last visit abruptly made sense to Will. She didn't harbor a secret crush on him; she loathed him for being part and parcel of her father's lies.

He could also see that the girl was telling him the truth. Breathing an inward sigh of relief, Will steered Darian over to the bed and sat down beside her, his tone and demeanor gentling now that the most pressing question had been answered.

"How long have you known?"

"Almost nine months."

And in all that time, she had kept her father's secret. Will was impressed: Either Darian was an exceptionally mature and bright fifteen-year-old, able to appreciate the severity of her circumstances, or spy instincts really were genetic.

"How did you find out?"

Darian stared down at her lap, studying her long, black-polished fingernails. "I snuck into Dad's office one night to use the computer," she admitted, sounding almost sheepish. "I wanted to download a video off YouTube but Mom has these parental controls on my laptop so I can't."

Her voice took on a certain dullness, as if repeating what came next both pained and bored her. "I didn't mean to open up any of his private stuff – I'm not a snoop like Sam. But I clicked something and all of a sudden there were all of these files, about Homeland Security and Project Hometown – and you," she concluded, looking up accusingly at Will.

Mentally assessing the damage, Will acknowledged that Darian's unauthorized use of her father's computer could be tracked down – that was a problem, to be sure. But if no one had noticed the breach in nine months, it indicated that no one was looking, and they probably wouldn't start unless given a reason to. For the moment, then, the girl was safe.

Darian had put Will in a tough spot, no two ways about it. The Daniel Taft side of his persona reasoned that he should march directly downstairs, take Joseph into his office and inform him of the situation, let him sort it out; Darian was his child, after all. Besides, covering up a breach of this magnitude was akin to career suicide, perhaps even literal suicide if Darian talked to the wrong people.

But the young man wasn't Daniel Taft right now. He was Will Traveler. And Will saw Maya's face gazing at him imploringly, silently pleading with him to do the right thing; Will heard Maya's voice reminding him that the Langdons had been kind to him, that they deserved kindness in return.

If he told Joseph, Will understood, he would be putting his handler in worse than a tough spot: He would essentially be forcing him to choose between protecting his daughter and upholding his vows to the Partners. Not to mention that once Joseph was made aware of the situation, if he tried to sweep it under the rug he would be placing his entire family, including Sela and Sam, in as much danger as Darian was already in. One thing Will was certain of was that the Partners did not take chances when it came to protecting the secrecy of their programs; in all likelihood, they would view the entire Langdon clan as a threat if Joseph turned rogue, and they would respond accordingly.

_You can handle this. You can solve this. If she doesn't talk, no one has to know what she knows – she just has to keep quiet, like she has for nearly a year now._

Mind made up, Will took Darian by the shoulders and turned her to face him. "I want you to listen to me very closely," he said earnestly. "I know you're upset at your dad for lying to you and your mom and your brother. I know you have a lot of anger and a lot of questions. But I need you to put all of that aside for a minute and think about how much danger you're in because you know about this."

Darian's dark eyes registered fear, as well they should have, but her voice remained steady. "I know that, Daniel. Why do you think I haven't told anybody about what I saw, not even Mom?"

Will cautioned himself not to come across too authoritatively. Though she was proving to be much sharper than he had given her credit for, Darian was still fifteen and angry, and he knew she would react against being issued orders.

"It's good that you haven't told anyone, Darian – that was smart, the best thing you could've done in this situation. But listening at doors? Getting thrown in detention? Cutting class? Doing this, whatever it is you've done to your hair? You can't think that's laying low, Darian," he insisted. "You're drawing all kinds of attention to yourself by acting this way, and that's the last thing you want to do right now."

This had obviously not occurred to Darian. Self-consciously tucking her hair behind her ears, she asked in a small, bitter voice, "So what am I supposed to do, then? Just be like him," Will knew she meant Joseph, "and act like we're this big happy family with no secrets?"

"Every family has secrets. Some just have bigger secrets than others."

"Is that what you do?" Darian demanded, her rage threatening to boil over again. "Lie to your family about who you are and what you do?"

Recognizing that the truth would be most effective in this instance, Will replied frankly, "I don't have a family, actually. My mother left when I was a kid – I have no idea where she is, and I really don't care. My father is dead, has been for years. In fact, you and your mom and dad and Sam are the closest thing I've got to a family, Darian. And yes," he tabled, meeting her accusatory gaze head-on, "if lying to you was what it took to keep you all safe, then that's what I'd do, without hesitation. It's what I have done, for two years, to protect you."

Will let his words sink in, watched Darian's adolescent defenses crumble as they did, saw tears gather in her mascara-rimmed eyes. When they spilled over, he opened his arms to her; Darian threw herself on his neck and sobbed into his shoulder, her painfully thin body shaking violently as she released nine months of pent-up confusion, fear and anger. Will held the girl, murmured words of comfort in her ear and rubbed her back soothingly, like any big brother would have.

In the midst of the breakdown, Sela eased open the bedroom door. Reacting quickly, Will flashed her a thumbs-up sign behind Darian's back and mouthed, _"We had a talk." _

Looking relieved and grateful for his intervention with her troubled teen, Sela mouthed back, _"You're an angel," _and closed the door before Darian could notice her intrusion.

When her tears subsided, Will retrieved a tissue from Darian's bathroom and used it to mop tears and streaks of mascara off her cheeks. "Better?" he asked, tweaking her nose gently with his thumb.

Darian nodded, blowing out a shaky breath. "I think so."

Her eyes moved to his. "What do I do now, Daniel?"

"Now," Will instructed gravely, taking her slender fingers in his and holding them tightly, "now you get your life together. Screwing up your own future isn't going to change what your dad does – which is actually pretty cool, by the way," he added, drawing a watery grin from the girl. "You might even want to work with him someday. I think you'd be good at it, the way you can keep a secret."

Darian considered this. "I don't know. It all seems so…wrong, or whatever."

Will stood up, pulling Darian with him and setting her firmly on her feet. "Whatever you think about what your dad does, Darian, the point is, now you just have to live. You just accept that this is your life, you make sure nobody ever finds out what you know, you love your dad because he's your dad and you try to forgive him for not being perfect, and you get on with it. That's all you can do. That's all any of us can do."

Nodding, Darian agreed, "Okay."

Will nudged her with his elbow. "Just 'okay'?"

"Okay," she conceded, sounding like a bored teenager again even as a smile played at the corners of her lips, "I won't tell anybody what I know, and I'll try to act better."

"Good. Now let's go have lunch."

Will started for the door, but Darian caught his hand, turning him back toward her. "Daniel? I, uh…It's just, before we never talk about this again, I have to know something."

She sounded nervous, uncertain, though her young face was determined. Will braced himself for the worst she could ask: Had her dad killed people? Who did he work for? What were they really trying to do?

"You and my dad…Are you good guys or bad guys?"

Will could have laughed with relief. Instead, he planted a brotherly kiss on Darian's forehead and, wrapping one arm securely around her thin shoulders, tucked her against his side. As they left the room, he told her definitively, "Good guys, Darian. We're the good guys. I swear."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6:**

"**Magic"**

Maya wanted to do something special for Will's last day in Deer Harbor. She had started thinking about it while he was in New York, about how she didn't just want to wake up on Saturday morning and find him gone, about how she didn't simply want to wave goodbye from the train platform like she didn't care if she ever saw him again.

Was she ever going to see him again? The rest of her role in this mission, if one existed, had not yet been explained to Maya. In any event, she wanted to find a way – within the boundaries Will's employers had established for their agent-asset relationship – to show him that she would, odd as it was, always cherish the time they had spent together these past four weeks, and she would miss him once he had gone.

The solution came to Maya a few days before Will's departure. Hauling a box of Jericho's old clothes up from the basement so Will (who was about her brother's size, if a tad shorter) could outfit himself in a few "authentic" Deer Harbor items, she tripped over her mother's old wicker picnic basket. Instantly, Maya was reminded of warm, lazy summer afternoons tromping through the woods behind their house to the spot her mother, a dreamy flower-child who had spent the better portion of her life in an Arizona commune, had dubbed "Fairyland." According to Lorelei, the buttercup-yellow butterflies that had made the lake their home were really fairies in disguise; the flowers were their homes, Lorelei had explained, and the lake concealed an underwater kingdom where they could take on their true forms without fear of prying human eyes. Maya had loved that make-believe world in her childhood, although Fairyland was actually nothing more than a strip of beach surrounding a small, naturally-occurring lake nestled in the dense woods some five miles behind the Sanders house.

Picturesque, secluded, carpeted in sweet-smelling wildflowers and tall grass, Fairyland had brought a peace to Lorelei Sanders that she seemed to find nowhere else: It was the only place Maya had never seen her mother either high or shooting up. It was, in fact, the only place Maya had ever felt like a real person to her mother, a person worthy of actual conversation and whole-hearted attention, instead of a pretty doll Lorelei occasionally picked up to make over.

So a picnic, Maya decided, rubbing her shin where she had scraped it on the basket. Will was due to leave on Saturday morning by the eight o'clock train; she would close the shop on Friday, pack them peanutbutter sandwiches (Will's favorite) and apple salad and some angel food cake with whipped cream and a bottle of strawberry wine, and they would spend the day together in Fairyland.

It occurred to her that Will might nix this plan, because the potential for romance would be relatively high under such circumstances. He had been extra-sensitive about things like that since returning from New York; Maya didn't know what had happened there, but Will was jumpier about following the rules than she had ever seen him – which was saying something. She wasn't sure she could convince him that the picnic would not be a seduction attempt (it really wouldn't, she promised herself, because she knew the rules too and the consequences for breaking them).

In the end, Maya chose the path of least resistance: She said nothing about her plan to Will until he came down from his shower Friday morning and found her assembling the picnic basket at the kitchen counter.

"What's all this?" he asked with good-natured curiosity, pinching off a corner of the angel food cake.

Maya slapped his hand away. "This," she replied, unable to disguise her pride that she had kept even such a small secret hidden from the resident spy, "is your going-away present. I'm taking you on a picnic. And don't say no," she cut off his protest. "We've done nothing but work for four weeks, and we both need a break."

Will looked for a second as if he might refuse outright. Maya prepared for the disappointment, the rejection; she told herself it wouldn't matter – if he said no, he said no. He would have his reasons…

"You're right." Will turned a devilish grin on Maya, a light returning to his eyes that she hadn't seen since the night before he left for New York. "Fuck 'em, just for today. Let's go have fun."

Laughing, Maya joked, "Who are you and what have you done with Will?"

"This is the real Will Traveler," he cast back, sneaking another bite of cake before she could stop him. "Accept no substitute."

As they assembled the picnic items, Maya's spirits were soaring so high she felt like she was riding on a cloud. She could think of few things that would make Will act so cavalier about his duties; that she was one of those made her heart pitter-patter in her chest.

Actually, Maya's heart had more than one reason to beat a little faster. She had another surprise for Will, one she had been turning over in her mind for a couple of days, one she had only decided to go through with that very morning. She was nervous about how he would react. She was nervous about how she _wanted _him to react, for although Maya knew getting involved with Will was out of the question, deep inside she couldn't deny that part of her wanted Fairyland to work its magic for them, to give them a fairytale moment.

They struck off early to avoid walking through the woods in the heat of the day. Will carried the wicker basket, Maya the blanket. As a child, she had torn through brambles and briar patches, heedless of snagging her clothes or her skin; as an adult, she was relieved to find that the deer path her mother had always followed through the thick trees and snarled underbrush remained relatively unobstructed. The lane was even wide enough for the two of them to walk side-by-side. They strolled along companionably under the cool, shaded forest canopy, Maya sensing that the chains which had shackled them for four weeks were dropping off of them with each step they took.

_It feels like a day when anything could happen…_

Will was naturally curious about their destination, so as they walked Maya told him her memories of her childhood outings. He listened avidly; he always seemed interested when Maya discussed her family, which touched her somehow, probably because she could see no reason why he should care other than that he cared about her.

Will remarked sympathetically on Lorelei's addiction, intimating that he had spent enough time around users to know how debilitating the habit was. "It's like a demon," he commented at one point, striding ahead a few paces to push back a low-hanging branch so Maya could pass without stooping. "Like being possessed, I guess I mean. They've just gotta have it."

Finding his description apt, Maya agreed, "That's how it was for Mom. She was a sweet person, really – almost childlike in some ways, very innocent. Except when it came to getting her fix. Then she would lie and cheat and steal, do anything to get her hands on what she wanted. Dad used to beg her to clean up. He even sent her to rehab clinics a few times. It would take for a while, but…"

Maya shook her head sadly, picturing the feverish glow that had always, in the end, returned to her mother's pale gray eyes, signaling the end of happy times in the Sanders household.

"She finally got to the point where she didn't even leave the house anymore," Maya went on, surprised by how comforting it was to finally be able to share this story with someone who wanted to hear it for more than a juicy piece of town gossip. "Dad was going to send us away, Jericho and me, to stay with some friends of his in Portland while he got her dried out. But she overdosed before he could make the arrangements."

In her mind's eye, Maya saw her pink Barbie backpack hit the living room floor, saw pencils roll out of it across the hardwood, saw her mother's fingers curled stiffly over the back of the couch, saw Lorelei's eyes open and staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

It was Maya who, on the last day of school her seventh-grade year, had gotten off the bus alone – Jericho, a senior, was out behind the high school gym smoking weed with Andy Pruitt and his other stone friends – and had discovered her mother's body on the sofa, the heroine needle still in her arm. It was Maya who had called first 911, then her father at the bookstore; Maya who had covered Lorelei's half-naked body (she was wearing only a thin tee-shirt and panties) with a bath towel before the EMTs arrived; Maya who had sat on the floor stroking her mother's forehead and singing "Amazing Grace" through her tears so her mother would not be lonely until the ambulance arrived.

Afterwards, Maya reflected, it had been she who had held her father together – Jericho had absconded within days of the funeral, off to God knew where to pursue his own deadly habit. Without Lorelei, Thomas Sanders had been lost, adrift. Maya had never really understood a love like her father's for her mother, a love that could be unshaken, undiminished, despite all of the awful, hurtful things the other person had done.

Until, perhaps, now.

Once they reached the small lake around midday, Maya and Will turned their attention to happier topics – like swimming. Setting down the blanket far enough from the water so it wouldn't get wet, Maya felt her anxiety begin to mount as the time for revealing her second surprise drew near.

Underneath her heather-grey tank-top and jeans, Maya had that morning donned a black bikini, purchased two years earlier off of a clearance rack at the Augusta Macy's in a fit of daring. She had not taken it out of her bottom dresser drawer since purchasing it; all summer, when she and Will had swum in the lake behind her house, she had worn her usual suit, a gray-and-white polka-dot one-piece. Now, her fingers trembled as she slipped down the zipper of her jeans, half-wishing she had left the bikini in her bureau, buried beneath old sweaters and mismatched gloves.

She watched Will's back as he shed his tee-shirt and khaki shorts. Without looking over his shoulder (always the gentleman, that was Will, he didn't watch her strip down to her bathing suit), he ran pell-mell into the warm, murky water with a whoop.

What would he think when he saw her new look? What would he say?

Quivering with nerves, Maya briefly considered making a mad dash for the water while Will was preoccupied splashing around. Sooner or later, though, she would have to come out of the lake – wasn't that what the song said, "she was afraid to come out of the water"? Maya smiled to herself at the thought. Well, she decided, strengthening the resolve that had prompted her to wear the bikini that morning, she might as well reveal her surprise now, see what happened.

_I am not trying to seduce him. I just want to be sure he remembers me when he leaves._

Maya had dated in high school (nothing steady) and during the first year of her father's illness, until her responsibilities became so overwhelming that she simply didn't have time for romance. But even when she had been dating, she had never been one of those girls to whom coquetry came easily: She was too serious, too shy, too unsure of herself. Whenever she watched other girls flitting around boys and effortlessly pulling off some glamorous, sexy look, she suspected that if she were to try the same thing, she would appear both silly and foolish. Thus stripping off her clothes and approaching the water in nothing more than two tiny strips of black fabric required all of Maya's considerable courage, especially once Will looked up and saw her.

The look on his face was worth it.

Will stopped splashing and stared, open-mouthed, as Maya forced herself to nonchalantly pick her way over the rocky beach toward the lake's edge. She kept her eyes trained on his face, her body tingling as his gaze raked over her; an unmistakable heat flared in his blue-green irises as his eyes moved downward from her chin to her toes.

Maya felt hot and cold at the same time, feverish and chilled. It was not an unpleasant sensation, actually.

Finally, her toes hit the warm water and she was sinking under the dark surface, walking farther and farther out until her feet no longer touched the bottom. Then she swam out to where Will still floated, looking shell-shocked. She didn't stop until she was near enough to see what a deep forest-green his eyes had become, just like the night in her store when they had so nearly kissed.

_He wants me. I think I can stop with that – for now._

Will cleared his throat and closed his mouth. "Well," he managed, somewhat breathlessly. "So you bought a new swimsuit?"

Maya blushed and giggled. Her heart was pounding so hard she was certain he could hear it. "Yup. Whatta you think?"

"I think you're beautiful. Gorgeous, really."

Will's tone was light but his eyes were smoky. Maya all at once wondered if she might have miscalculated about how intent Will was on following the rules. On the heels of that thought followed the question of whether or not she would take the risk if it turned out that he was willing to be seduced.

The moment held, their gazes locked and their knees brushing beneath the surface, until Will seemed to remember their situation. He ran a hand through his wet hair, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it.

"That's cruel, you know," he admonished, swimming away just a little. He flung water off his fingertips onto her cheeks, causing her to squeal. "I mean, honestly, what are you trying to do, give me heart failure?"

"I didn't know super-suave government spies were susceptible to things like little black bikinis," Maya shot back, retaliating with her own miniature splash-attack.

"Maya, all men, everywhere, are susceptible to little black bikinis."

Will advanced on her then, throwing handfuls of water over her head as she shrieked and tried in vain to swim away. He was much too fast for her; in half a minute, he had caught her by the arms and was holding her still, gazing solemnly into her face.

Gravely, he declared, "You asked for this, Maya. I didn't want to do it, but you've left me no choice: You must be dunked."

"No!"

Too late. Will shoved her head underwater; Maya came up, sputtering with laughter, and immediately went on the offensive.

They played in the water until the sun rode high in the sky, competing to see who could swim the farthest, diving down to collect smooth rocks off the bottom, floating on their backs and staring up at the cloudless blue sky. When their stomachs started to growl, they toweled off on the beach – Will wordlessly tossed his tee-shirt to Maya, who couldn't suppress a wicked femme fatale smile at his discomfiture – and set out the picnic on a hill overlooking the lake.

"Even your peanutbutter sandwiches are delicious," Will complimented Maya in a tone of wonder, inhaling his fourth one. "I am gonna miss your cooking, Maya Sanders."

They were sitting on the flannel blanket, Will turned on his side to face her and Maya, swallowed up by his tee-shirt, positioned Indian-style with her plate on her lap. Maya couldn't help thinking that Will looked far more delicious than anything she had packed: His damp hair fell softly across his forehead, standing up (as always) in the back; the muscles in his bare chest and stomach tensed whenever he moved; water droplets glistened on his summer-bronzed skin. She fought a powerful urge to kick the food aside, pin him to the blanket and kiss him until he stopped worrying about the damn rules.

To distract herself from such forbidden thoughts, Maya uncorked the bottle of strawberry wine and poured them each a glass in the goblets she had brought along. "What should we drink to?" she asked, handing Will's across to him.

He considered her question. "How about, to things we'll miss."

Maya's heart fluttered. Sometimes, Will was too sweet.

"To things we'll miss," she echoed, clinking her glass against his.

Will sipped in silence while Maya went about cutting them each a slice of cake. Suddenly, he sat up, crossing his legs and fixing her with a bold stare. Maya stopped cutting and looked at him, startled.

"So…What will you miss about me, anyway?"

The nervousness underlying the cocky inquiry melted Maya's heart. Was he afraid she didn't care that he was leaving?

Nevertheless, she couldn't resist teasing him. "A bit presumptuous, aren't we, Mr. Traveler?" she asked primly, scooping whipped cream onto their plates, being sure to give Will an extra-large helping. "Who says I'll miss _anything_ about you?"

"I'm lovable and adorable," Will rejoined, his feigned arrogance eliciting a giggle from Maya. "_I_ would miss me. But if you're going to be coy…"

"I am not 'coy.' Here, eat your cake." Maya passed him his plate.

Between bites, Will pressed, "Okay, fine, if you don't want to just tell me, let's play a game. The what-I'll-miss-about-you game. I'll even go first."

"How does one play this game?" Maya inquired, sipping her wine.

"It's easy. We each say one thing we'll miss about the other person."

"And how do we know who wins?"

"It's not that kind of game," he replied patiently. "Now, are you in or are you out?"

"Sounds easy enough." Maya managed a light tone, though privately, she feared this game – and the flirtatious atmosphere in which it was being played – could land them in dangerous territory quite easily. "You said you're going first?"

Will licked whipped cream off his fork, pondering. At length, he said, "I will miss washing dishes with you after supper and hearing all about what you did at work and who came into the store."

Maya's insides melted – again. Will liked hearing about her day? That settled it, he was perfect, she decided.

Will colored a little, obviously embarrassed by his openness. Covering, he said quickly, "Your turn."

Maya cast around for a safe answer. _I'll miss your eyes? Your smile? Your scent? That stomach-dropping feeling when I think you're thinking about kissing me? Knowing you're in the next room? Seeing you first thing every morning?_

Aware of the lengthening silence, she at last settled on, "I'll miss watching you watch baseball like you're going to be tested over the rules of the game."

Will chuckled. "I'll miss you reminding me not to take myself so seriously."

"I'll miss your foot massages. Those are amazing, by the way."

"I'll miss reading to you."

"I'll miss you reading to me."

"I'll miss fishing with you. Or watching you fish while I try to bait my hook, I should say."

Maya giggled – again. Will definitely had that effect on her; so did wine, and she was on her second glass.

"I'll miss quizzing you on thermodynamics."

Will snorted. "Liar. No you won't."

Maya shrugged, as if to say, _Yeah, you're right. _Chemical engineering was hardly fascinating in her book, although Will seemed to be warming up to the subject.

A short silence fell. Maya suddenly realized she didn't want the game to end; she had things she wanted – no, things she needed – to say to Will, and here in Fairyland was the only place she knew she could find the courage to do so.

Taking a deep breath, she confessed, "Okay, then, what I'll really miss is how your face gets all serious and you sort of squinch up your eyes when you can't think of an answer, but then when it comes to you, you snap your fingers and look so relieved."

With that, the game threatened to take on a slightly more intimate timber. Maya saw Will shift uncomfortably. Heartbeat doubling, she didn't give him a chance to take his turn.

"I'll miss how your hair always sticks up in the back because you can't keep your hands out of it. I'll miss the way you bite your bottom lip when you're nervous. I'll miss hearing you sing to yourself in the shower when you think I'm still asleep in the mornings."

With every word, Maya knew she was hurtling toward a dangerous precipice. Will was watching her mouth in that heart-stoppingly sexy way she found irresistible. He didn't move away when she edged closer.

In one breath, Maya rushed on, "I'll miss you being downstairs when I wake up, and in the kitchen when I get home, and across the hall when I fall asleep. I'll miss _you, _Will, everything about you. Everything," she added, wanting him to understand that she included in the word even the parts of him and his work that had at first frightened and repulsed her.

"Maya." Will licked his lips nervously. She was close enough to see the hazel flecks in his eyes. "I'll miss you, too, but we can't…"

_Not even in Fairyland, huh?_

Maya couldn't deny that she was disappointed. She hadn't intended the day as a seduction routine – okay, so, some part of her had, or she wouldn't have worn a string bikini and packed a bottle of wine. But she had always been prepared to let the day end as it had begun, with nothing besides friendship (and a raft of unspoken longings) between them.

"I know we can't," she answered calmly, pleased by how even and strong her voice sounded. It took a tremendous amount of self-control not to close the short distance between them. "I just wanted you to know that I still wish we could."

_Where the hell did that come from? My inner vixen?_

Her words seemed to have a profound effect on Will. He reached out and brushed his thumb across her lips. At his touch, a flash of white-hot desire turned Maya's skin to flame.

"Me, too," he whispered roughly. He leaned in and placed the softest, lightest kiss on the corner of her mouth, murmuring in the same anguished tone, "God, Maya, me too."

Somehow, Maya managed not to turn her head and capture Will in a deep, full-blown kiss. She imagined an army of guardian angels descending upon her at that moment, hauling her back from the threshold of deadly temptation; otherwise, she had no explanation for how the moment, easily the most erotic of her life to that point, passed without her falling into Will's arms.

"Wow," she said shakily, when Will sat back, his breathing, like her own, labored. She knew her cheeks were flushed, from desire more than embarrassment, but she didn't care. "That was…"

"Intense," Will supplied. They shared a grin. He fell back on the blanket, pressing a hand over his eyes and saying with a groan, "You don't make it easy on a guy, Maya, has anybody ever told you that?"

"No," Maya answered honestly. Even though her insides continued to hum with unfulfilled desire, she found it surprisingly easy to resume their normal friendly banter. "I'm not exactly Deer Harbor's most sought-after bachelorette, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Yeah, I'm all broken up about your lack of suitors, too," he answered sarcastically, shooting her a wicked grin.

Maya beamed at Will's words, flattered, as they packed up the picnic basket and pulled their clothes back on over their suits (Maya returning Will's tee-shirt to him and donning her own tank-top). The sun was sinking below the horizon as they made their way back toward the house; by unspoken agreement, they walked hand in hand until they emerged from the trees into her backyard, then immediately, wordlessly uncoupled.

_Just in case anybody's watching…_

The thought gave Maya the creeps, but she couldn't pretend that it hadn't occurred to her before. Sometimes, inside her shop, she would be overcome by the sensation that someone, somewhere, was looking in on her. She had considered asking Will about it. Two things prevented her: First of all, she didn't want to give him – or, more to the point, his employers – a reason to think she had anything to hide, anything they couldn't look in on, no matter how much of a personal intrusion their spying was. Second, she didn't want to worry Will when he had enough on his mind, in case he didn't know about her being under some sort of surveillance.

They decided to order a pizza later when they got hungry. Stationed on the couch in their usual positions, they spent the evening first watching a Cubs game – Maya noted that Will truly seemed to enjoy baseball now, although he still took notes about the players to study later and worried incessantly about mixing up which team played in what league – and then reading from the Poe story collection. They polished off the bottle of wine they had opened at lunch, though Maya did most of the drinking; she wasn't normally a lush, but she needed something to get her through Will's last night in Deer Harbor without suffering a breakdown.

She would not cry, she ordered herself. She would be strong. Until he left, anyway.

Around midnight, Will sat the book aside and stretched. "I should get some sleep," he said, sounding reluctant to end the evening.

Maya fought to keep her tone cheerful. "Yeah, big day tomorrow, huh?" Will nodded. "Are you nervous?"

"No, not really." Will studied his toes for a minute, then admitted, "Well, maybe a little."

How exactly did one encourage a spy? Maya opted for honesty. "You know what you're doing, Will. You've got your cover story memorized, you've got the details down cold, you've even learned advanced chemical engineering theory. You'll be fine."

"Thanks, Maya." He seemed genuinely grateful for the confidence-booster. "I couldn't have pulled this off without you."

Maya's stomach churned at his words. Despite her rapidly-intensifying feelings for Will, she couldn't pretend she wasn't bothered by what he was going to New Haven to do – frame two innocent people for some as-of-yet-unknown horrible crime. Reminders of her own role in that work unsettled her; on the one hand, Maya knew she was trapped, yet on the other, she knew she should have refused to be involved with something this horrible.

Pushing those thoughts away because she wanted to end Will's time in Deer Harbor on a positive note, Maya finally came to the question she had been desperate to ask all day. "So… What happens now, Will? Do I ever see you again, or do you just ride off into the sunset, and that's that?"

Will's surprise was evident. "You'll be helping me, of course," he replied slowly, as if wondering how she could not have understood this. "Pulling off this mission is going to be very involved. I can't just live with these guys for a year or two years and then suddenly assemble a case against them in a few days. I'm going to need handwriting samples from them, a place to put together all of the 'evidence' I gather, someplace to get everything in order where nobody from New Haven would ever stumble across any of it. I'll be coming back here regularly to do that, and you'll be helping me."

He apparently mistook Maya's horror for confusion. "I thought you knew that," he apologized. "I'm sorry. I guess…I guess I just thought Ellington would have explained that you're my asset for the duration of this assignment."

_Small but on-going. That's what he said the first night he was here, when he was Daniel Taft – my role would be small but on-going._

"Will, I…" A wave of nausea swept over Maya. She heartily regretted drinking most of their bottle of wine. "I can't do that, Will. I can't."

"Why not?" Will looked bewildered. "You've been helping me for a month now."

"This is different." Maya stood up, feeling dizzy and light-headed, either from the wine or the realization that the happy little fiction she'd been living in – the fiction in which she wasn't really doing anything that wrong, just helping Will so he wouldn't get caught and get into trouble, really – was crumbling around her ears.

Will eyed her cagily. Behind that look she saw something of the man, Daniel, he had been when he first showed up in Deer Harbor, and it sickened her further.

_That is not Will. Will is a good man. Do not think of that man as Will._

After studying her in such a way for a moment, Will appeared to determine what the problem was, where her reluctance was stemming from, and he offered a ready solution. "When I say helping me," he explained carefully, "what I really mean is giving me a place to work. A place to keep…things where they won't be in danger of being discovered. You won't be spying on anybody or anything like that," he hurried to reassure her. "You know, it won't really be any different than what we've been doing – you'll just be helping me create a story."

His placating tone shredded the remnants of Maya's self-control. "A story that could send two innocent people to prison!" she nearly shouted at him.

She was pacing the living room, trying (with scant success) to control her raging emotions. The wine made it difficult.

"It's not the same, Will, and you know it. I can't do it." She folded her arms across her chest. "I won't."

At that, he stood up, crossed to her and gripped her firmly by the upper arms, looking like he wanted to shake her, though he didn't. "You don't have a choice, Maya," he informed her in clipped, angry tones. "You signed their agreement. You took their deal. Now you're in this thing, and you can't get out."

"I do have a choice." Maya stared back at him defiantly, refusing to be intimidated. Daniel Taft might have frightened her; Will Traveler didn't – he would cut off his own hand before striking her, she knew that much about him. "I don't have a wonderful choice, but I have a choice, and I'm saying no. This ends, here."

Will released her and stepped back. "You know what my employers would do if I reported what you just said, Maya? Do you?"

Dread skated down Maya's spine. She shuddered. "They would kill me."

"Yes, they would kill you. Tell me you're prepared to accept that. That you'd die to protect two people you don't even know – two people you'll never even meet."

Maya considered this. Could she put the lives of two strangers ahead of her own? Could she, at twenty-three, march knowingly to her own death to save Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog? The question was not an easy one; Maya didn't pretend to be brave or heroic. She only knew that every instinct told her she could not allow herself to be drug further into this world of cruelty and deceit, that she would lose some essential part of her identity if she went along with Will and his employers in this ruse.

Trapped, again. That was how she felt.

Pouncing on her hesitation, Will softened his voice and moved closer again, resting his hands lightly on her shoulders. "I told you a few weeks ago that once you got to know me, you might realize that I have my reasons for doing what I do. Do you know me that well by now, Maya? Do you know me well enough to trust that I wouldn't ask you to do this if it wasn't important, if it didn't serve a larger purpose?"

"Don't, Will," Maya pleaded. Tears stung her eyes: How could he be so heartless, how could he make this about her feelings for him instead of about what was right and wrong? "It's not a fair question. This isn't about you."

"The hell it's not." Anger flared in him so suddenly that, for just an instant, Maya was afraid. His grip tightened on her shoulders as his voice dropped, so low she had to lean forward to hear his words. "You try to walk away from this, Maya, and they try to kill you, do you think I'm going to be able to stand by and let that happen? Do you?"

Icy fear cascaded through Maya's veins. Here was a wrinkle she hadn't considered: that, to protect her, Will would endanger himself.

_I should have, though. Look what he did with Andy Pruitt…_

"You would have to," she argued thinly, recognizing the futility of her words even as they crossed her lips. "It's my choice. I'm not asking you to save me."

"Don't be stupid." The words were harsh, but his voice was gentle. Maya looked up into Will's eyes; her breath caught in her throat as she discovered everything they hadn't dared say to one another written there, behind his clear, troubled gaze. "You know I would save you."

_Or die trying._

"Maya, listen to me. This isn't about right or wrong. This is about survival," Will went on, cupping her chin in his hand so she couldn't look away. "I chose this life, but they forced it on you. You think I don't get that – I do. You're not in this because you want to be. You're just doing what you have to do to survive.

"And you are a survivor, Maya," he insisted when she started to protest. "You survived your mother's addiction and her death, you survived your father's illness and his passing, you survived all the heartache your brother's put you through. You can survive this, too. You just have to be strong. You just have to trust me."

Trust you, Maya thought woefully. Trust you how, when I don't even know who you are?

Deep down, though, Maya realized her inner battle was already over. It had ended the moment Will made clear that if she walked away, he would sacrifice himself to save her. She couldn't let that happen, anymore than he could let his employers kill her.

They were trapped, both of them, in different ways. But at least they were trapped together.

Reluctantly, hating herself for her weakness and selfishness, Maya nodded. "Okay," she decided. "I'll do it. I'll help you."

Will kissed her forehead. "That's my girl."

Impulsively, Maya slipped her arms around Will's waist. To her surprise, he didn't pull away; he wrapped his arms around her and drew her head to his chest, holding her tightly, as if he thought she might suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke.

"I am your girl," she told him, her voice muffled by his shirt. The tears which had threatened all evening now spilled over. "I am your girl, Will."

Will stroked her hair. "Shh, shh, don't cry," he murmured. Maya couldn't help herself; the tears flowed freely down her cheeks. He rocked her back and forth, whispering that it would be all right, that she didn't need to be afraid. Promising that he would come back soon, that everything would work out in the end, she would see.

Sometime later, lying alone in her bed with all that had happened that day conspiring to drive away any hope of sleep, Maya tried to convince herself that Will's words were true. Someday, his mission would end, and then her debt to his employers would be settled. He would still be an agent, of course; she didn't see him walking away from that life, not when he was so committed to it, so convinced that the righteousness of the ends justified the awfulness of the means. But perhaps his employers wouldn't care if they were together once this mission was over. She had difficulty believing that – her knowledge of Will's operation would surely be just as dangerous to them once Burchell and Fog were in prison for crimes they didn't commit as it was now – but she supposed Will might know something she didn't about how these situations worked.

Maybe exceptions were made. Maybe if he did his job well he could ask and be granted a favor.

Those very hopes had seemed so real just that morning, lying on a blanket in Fairyland, falling ever more in love with the mysterious stranger who had so utterly transformed her life. Now, in the dark stillness of the real world, such possibilities seemed foolish, like a little girl believing that butterflies were fairies, or that her mother might be cured of her all-consuming addiction if they could only stay by the banks of the fairy kingdom forever.

Will was who he was, and he did what he did. Maya was who she was, and she did not live in nor belong to his world. In those circumstances, Maya noted sadly, turning her face into her pillow so it could catch her tears, a happy ending seemed impossible.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7:**

"**The Castle"**

_Author's Note: I promise not to do much episode rehash in this story, but for the development of Will's character I really want to show the first meeting of the trio from his perspective. So please, bear with me for a few pages here in the middle._

_New Haven, Connecticut_

_Twenty-two months before Drexler bombing_

Will Traveler left his heart in Deer Harbor. He had never fully understood what people meant by that expression until he watched from the train window as Maya's slender figure receded from view, not to be seen again for a month. He understood then, because a great, gaping hole opened up inside of him where his heart should have resided.

He had fallen, and fallen hard. In the space of one afternoon, he had allowed an enchanted forest, a glass of sweet wine, and a little black bikini to slip past his carefully-constructed, well-guarded defenses. Maya had stormed his heart, and the castle had fallen. Will was hers.

Unfortunately, he was also Hometown's.

Will didn't even bother trying to think about his fabricated history, to rehearse the details upon which (as he had told Maya repeatedly) covers were made, as the Amtrak hurtled toward New Haven. He was ready for the mission. He would see the operation through successfully; if anything, he was more determined about that now than ever. He just couldn't make himself concentrate at the moment. He wanted a few more minutes alone, uninterrupted, with his thoughts of Maya.

Will's renewed determination to succeed in this operation centered on Maya, actually: If he could pull this off, if he could impress the Partners enough, Freed had insinuated that a place would be waiting for him at the table where the powerful and privileged gathered. Once his future with Hometown was secured, Will reasoned, he could find a way to bring Maya into his life for real.

Of course, she would know what he did, and Will knew the Partners wouldn't like that. What he had told Maya after his fight with the Pruitts was true – she was safe so long as she remained predictable, and love was not predictable. Yet Will was positive that, with a victory like the New Haven op backing him up, he could prove to those in power that Maya wasn't, and never would be, a threat. Riding on the tidal wave of a great success, Will was confident that he could persuade Freed to bring Maya officially into the program, to train her and to pay her; not as an agent, obviously – she wasn't cut out for such work, anyone could see that – but as Will's permanent asset, his helpmate. He had heard of such arrangements being made before, from Alex, so he knew it could be done.

He would earn the privilege. He would execute this mission so flawlessly, the Partners would have no choice but to recognize his value. And then they would have the proper motivation to give him what he wanted, to grant such a relatively small favor, to keep one of their best and brightest happy.

The hard part, Will reflected, would be convincing Maya to join his world, which he could see repulsed her. But he had also seen the answering look in her blue-grey eyes the night before when he had as good as confessed that he was falling in love with her. Maya wanted them to be together, wanted it badly enough to compromise her scrupulous morals by agreeing to help him frame innocent people. Will thought he could work with that to recruit her into Hometown when the time came.

If not…Well, Will wouldn't think about it. He would be positive. Will's life operated on certain assumptions, one of the most important being that if he merely refused to accept defeat, he could ensure victory. So he would refuse to let Maya walk out of his life. It was as simple as that.

First, however, for any of his grand plans to work out Will had to successfully complete his mission. Distasteful as it was, he had to ensure that Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog ended up spitted on the end of the Partners' stakes.

To that end, as the dial on his watch ticked past noon and the train approached New Haven, Will mentally took stock of his situation. In the last four weeks he had broken, or nearly so, more rules than he had in four years as a Hometown agent – including during his training, when he hadn't even known what all the rules were. He had fought with the Pruitts and then linked himself openly to a Hometown operation in order to scare them off from retaliating against Maya once he was gone; he had concealed a security breach of epic proportions in his handler's own household from the Partners, and in the process had lied to his handler; he had crossed an emotional if not physical line with asset and, instead of owning up to it straightaway and having her replaced, he had chosen to hide that fact from his superiors.

If he wasn't careful, Will realized, his next debrief would end in a not-so-pleasant conversation with Hometown security personnel. While training with Alex, Will had been "permitted" (read: required) to witness one such interrogation. By the time the blood and other sundry bodily fluids had run thick and freely down a drain cut into the center of a tiny basement room, Will had been persuaded that he never wanted to endure something like that himself.

Besides, he didn't want to betray the Partners or disappoint Joseph or ruin his own future. Will still wanted everything he had wanted on the night he stepped off the train in Deer Harbor as Daniel Taft. That he now wanted Maya, too, complicated matters, but it hadn't altered those original desires.

Anyway, from whatever angle he approached the predicament, Will could see no happy ending for him and Maya without the blessing of the Partners.

Success was his only option. He had to stop breaking rules before he got caught – and even the most skilled operatives did, eventually, catch themselves up in their own plots and deceptions. Much as he hated it, for the time being Will decided he would have to hold his feelings for Maya in check, be patient and not allow things to progress any further between them than they already had until this operation was over. He couldn't risk the Partners finding out how he felt about her until he was prepared to ask for their permission to be with her.

He also had to start focusing on acquiring his targets' trust. Casting his thoughts toward the two young men he would soon be meeting, Will noted that perhaps it was for the best that he had left his heart in Deer Harbor: The mission he was about to embark on would be easier if he could remain cold and unfeeling toward his targets.

When the train at last arrived in New Haven, Will stepped off onto the bustling platform and began the arduous task of hailing a taxi amidst the scores of students flooding into the station. He was glad he had packed sparingly; it would have been a nightmare to wrestle a suitcase through the crowd in addition to Jericho's hand-me-down backpack (Maya had told him to take anything of her brother's he wanted) and the fancy digital camcorder Joseph had given him during his visit to Staten Island.

As it was, Will finally flagged down a cab and climbed gratefully into the backseat. "Graduate housing, please," he instructed the driver, reading off an address two streets south of the one on his housing ticket.

Will settled back for the short ride, relaxing and regaining his equilibrium from the long train ride as he took in the town (rather quaint) and the campus buildings (stately, as befitted an institution of Yale's standing). Eventually, the cab turned down a series of tree-lined streets near campus where several blocks of older homes had been renovated into affordable housing for graduate students.

Will could feel the cagey excitement that always accompanied a new mission building inside of him. He let it in, let it sharpen his focus, arouse his senses, clear his mind.

_I am Will Traveler._

A calmness born of supreme confidence descended, as it always did, to take the edge of anxiety off of his excitement.

I am Will Traveler, he told himself, repeating the words over and over in his mind like a mantra, feeling them creep into the corners of his skull, seep into the wrinkles of his brain: I am Will Traveler…I am Will Traveler…I am Will Traveler…

_And for Maya's sake, I will be perfect today._

When the taxi pulled over by the curb, Will paid the fare, tipping generously but not too generously (grad students were, as a rule, dirt poor). He pretended to fiddle with the strap of his backpack until the cab disappeared around the corner; he did not want the cabbie to suspect that he had been let off somewhere other than his actual destination. One could never be too careful about remaining inconspicuous.

When the taxi was at last out of sight, Will casually strolled down the street toward the address on his housing ticket, which proved to be a two-storey, royal-blue Victorian hemmed in by thick green shrubs.

Will had deliberately exited the cab away from the house he would be sharing with Burchell and Fog because he wanted to time his entrance perfectly – hard to do if a taxi pulled up out front and loudly announced his presence. Joseph had provided him with his roommates' travel plans: Tyler Fog would be driving himself in from his younger brother's apartment in Manhattan, where he had been crashing since Carlton had stopped his allowance three months ago, and was expected to arrive in New Haven around noon; Jay Burchell's flight from LA was due in at three o'clock, which meant he should arrive in New Haven sometime around four, accounting for time to pick up his luggage and find a cab.

It was half-past three when Will positioned himself on a bench at the far end of the block, took a campus map out of his backpack and pretended to peruse it. If either of his roommates spotted him there, he planned to say that the cab had let him out on the wrong street, that he had gotten turned around and had been trying to orient himself. As the small-town kid amongst two big-city boys, Will assumed his confusion would seem plausible.

But Will didn't end up needing the story. He had hardly gotten comfortable on the bench when an airport taxi stopped at the other end of the street and out climbed a tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking young man wearing jeans, a cranberry-colored tee-shirt, and a Cubs cap over a mop of dark curls. After leaning in the passenger's side window to pay the fare, the young man slung a backpack over his shoulder, double-checked a slip of paper clasped in his hand, and rolled his suitcase up the steps of the castle-like house Will would shortly call home.

Jay Burchell. Will had recognized him instantly from the photos Joseph had shown him.

Will waited for Burchell – no, better to think of him as Jay for now, as a friend rather than a target – to disappear inside the house before standing. He glanced down at himself for one final pre-operation check: run-down trainers, Wal-Mart jeans, Jericho Sanders' black hooded sweatshirt zipped up over the all-important gray Cubs tee-shirt, backpack over one shoulder and camera over the other – yes, everything was in place for him to introduce Will Traveler to the world.

_Ready…_

_Set…_

_Go._

As Will climbed the stone porch steps and opened the glass-paneled outer door (like many old Victorians, the house had a sort of anteroom between the porch and the more stately foyer), he could hear Jay saying, "My dad's from Chicago."

So Tyler had commented on the Cubs cap. Good; that chess piece was already in play, then.

The interior door stood open, meaning that Tyler immediately noticed Will once he stepped inside. Over Jay's shoulder, Tyler observed good-naturedly, "And the circle is complete."

He stuck out his hand, saying warmly, "Hey, you must be Will Traveler. Tyler Fog, School of Management."

Will took Tyler in at a glance and saw, to his relief, nothing of Carlton Fog in the young man's handsome, easy-going face. Dressed casually in a white pinstriped button-down over a Yale tee-shirt, Tyler was obviously making an effort to fit in with his new surroundings – even if his jeans did cost more than the state-of-the-art camera hanging conspicuously at Will's side, a fact Daniel Taft, connoisseur of fashion and finery, did not miss.

All of this Will noted in a split-second, saying "hey" to his new roommate and shaking hands as he did.

Jay immediately took his turn at the introductions. "Jay – " he started.

"Jay Burchell, Law School," Will interrupted. Seeing Jay's surprise, he added by way of explanation, "I read the housing ticket."

Will chose that moment to unveil what he had decided would be his trademark lopsided, dimple-revealing, innocent-as-the-new-dawn-but-still-gonna-make-trouble grin.

The grin had exactly the effect Will had intended: It irresistibly demanded responding smiles from both of his roommates. Will could see that Jay and Tyler automatically liked him, that they were engaged by his slightly backwards affability, that they were put at ease by his unstudied charm.

Looking away from his targets – no, better to think of them as roommates, for the time being – Will surveyed the empty foyer, noting the wooden staircase, the oak floor, the large windows. Apparently their furniture had not yet arrived (Will's housing ticket had assured him that the place came furnished), though even empty, it was obvious the home had been quite grand at one time. It was still enough to impress a country kid like Will Traveler.

"Looks like we got a nice place," he observed.

Will suspected his words would elicit a snobbish reaction from the resident billionaire. He was not disappointed.

"Yeah, well, wait'll you see upstairs," Tyler remarked dryly.

His next words were cut short as his cell phone rang. Scanning the caller ID, he said apologetically to his roommates, "Uh, sorry guys, I have to take this."

Jay and Will shrugged in unison, as if to say it didn't bother them for Tyler to answer his phone, but their roommate had not waited for a response – Tyler was already on his way into the bare living room, saying into the receiver, "Hey, Dad, can I call you back…?"

In the brief silence that followed Tyler's departure, Will studied Jay's profile, noting that Jay looked slightly puzzled by the brush-off they had just been given. Will decided to take the opportunity to sort out the California boy's first impression of the billionaire's son.

Playing it cool, he prompted, in an ambiguous tone that could have implied either curiosity or annoyance, "So that's Tyler Fog, huh?"

Though Jay said nothing, something in his demeanor, in the uncertain way he was staring after Tyler, signaled Will that Jay hadn't yet decided whether he liked the other man or not. Pushing a bit farther, Will mused, "Wonder what he's doing slumming in grad housing?"

Ideally for the operation, the three of them would become best friends. Back-up plans had been discussed in case this proved impossible, but in the spirit of success, Will was determined to do his utmost to facilitate their transition from strangers to blood-brothers. He appreciated that in order for that to happen, he would in all likelihood need to mediate between the straight-laced colonel's son and the spoiled rich kid. Better that he discern from the start, then, how irritating Jay might find Tyler.

Apparently, Jay's file had captured his personality correctly: He was too kind-hearted and good-natured to dismiss someone after five minutes' acquaintance. Turning back to Will, he offered charitably, "I'm sure he'll be happy to tell us."

They shared a grin then, however, one that wasn't quite so generous – a knowing grin between two men from working-class backgrounds, one that said, _Rich people – they're their own favorite subjects._

Will was pleased with how the introductions were going to this point. He could see that Jay would not be difficult to win over; his magnanimous nature made him disposed to like people. Tyler, on the other hand, would likely present more of a challenge. While his high-society manners meant that he was cordial to most everyone, a world of difference existed between cordiality and friendship.

Will decided it was time to start the bonding process.

He had to play his cards carefully here, Will knew. If he didn't hit just the right tone, his master plan for creating common ground between the three of them could turn to quicksand under his feet.

_Ready, set, go…_

Pretending to notice Jay's cap for the first time, Will feigned disbelief. "You're kidding me." He fell back a step, letting an astonished grin spread slowly across his face. "You're a Cubs fan?"

Taken aback, Jay stammered, "Uh, yeah, we just went through this – "

He stopped short, slightly agape, when Will unzipped his sweatshirt, revealing the Cubs shirt underneath. After a beat, Jay laughed, shaking his head in pleasant bewilderment.

Tyler selected that moment to rejoin them. Catching sight of Will's shirt, he exclaimed, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait, wait." He seemed at a loss for words. "Wait, you too?"

Will just laughed. _Let them work it out for themselves, don't push it or it'll be suspicious…_

"I am loving this house already!" Tyler declared. Beneath the sociable frat-boy exterior, however, Will was certain he detected genuine warmth. That was good for a start.

Naturally, someone had to remark on the absurdity of the coincidence. Will was prepared to do so, yet he was glad Tyler beat him to the punch; it made the story more believable if he wasn't the one to explain it away.

"Wait," Tyler protested, looking quickly from Jay to Will. "What are the chances that three guys from LA, Maine and the Hamptons all like the same team?"

_Play it cool, Will. They're on the hook; now reel them in, just like fishing with Maya…_

Displaying the trademark grin once more, the one that said "trust me, this face could never lie," Will suggested lightly, "Must be fate."

_Or I'm just that damn good._

Jay and Tyler snorted with laughter in response to this. Will joined in easily, glad the moment had passed – the question had been asked, an acceptable answer given. Now, the fact that they were all Cubs fans was simply that: a fact.

"I don't know about fate," Jay countered, "but I'm glad we won't have to argue about what game to watch, because I can't exactly afford my own TV."

"Me either. Speaking of," Will walked further into the house, inspecting their new abode, "I thought this place was supposed to come fully outfitted. Anybody got any idea when our furniture is gonna arrive?"

"I called about that," Tyler answered. "The guy said four – and here they are," he added, as a moving truck pulled up out front and honked.

For the next two hours, the roommates busied themselves helping carry in and arrange couches, tables, chairs, dressers and beds. Will could see from Tyler's initially shocked expression that the press-board coffeetable and re-upholstered sofa were a far cry from what he had expected; to his credit, however, Tyler made no disparaging comments. In fact, he seemed excited about deciding how they should set up the house.

The biggest decision, of course, had to do with sleeping quarters – specifically, who would go where. Upstairs, a short hallway ran east-to-west, ending at a large stained-glass window depicting a blood-red rose in full bloom against a sky-blue background; the house's full bathroom, sporting both a tub and a shower, was located in the far southern corner (the downstairs had a half-bath off the side of the living room).

The upstairs also contained three bedrooms: two on the north, overlooking the street, and one on the south, overlooking the backyard. Roughly, the bedrooms were all the same size, yet each had its own quirks: The one to the south boasted a large picture window with a built-in storage trunk for a ledge; the north bedroom closest to the stairs contained a large walk-in closet, with access to the attic from inside; the other north-facing bedroom sported a wrought-iron spiral staircase in the corner that led up to an overhanging loft with a small window, which from the outside was shaped like a turret.

A swift perusal of the options told Will that his life would be made much easier if he could have easy, private access to the attic (where he doubted Jay and Tyler would ever go, especially if they had to come through his room to do so) for storing evidence and other compromising materials out of the way of prying eyes until he could transport them to Deer Harbor. Thus he hastily worked out a plan for securing the bedroom with the walk-in closet for himself – a plan that would also allow him to step into his self-appointed role as mediator between Jay and Tyler's somewhat incongruous personalities.

"So, how do we decide who gets which one?" Jay asked rather anxiously, standing in the upstairs hallway with his back to the wall while below them the movers continued carrying in furniture. "Do we draw straws or something?"

"I don't really care where I sleep," Tyler offered helpfully. "You guys can just choose and I'll take what's left."

"I say no straws and no selflessness," Will determined cannily. "I mean, we're all grad students, right? So let's work this out logically.

"Now, Jay," Will turned to the aspiring lawyer, "you're going to be doing a tremendous amount of reading and studying, so I'm thinking you'll want the quietest room in the house and the one that's most comfortable for spending lots of time in, right?"

Jay nodded. "Yeah, that sounds right."

"And Tyler," Will turned to his other roommate, "you're our resident venture capitalist, and you've got something of a reputation for partying – don't know if you're aware of that," he added innocently, drawing a laugh from the others. "Anyway, so I'm thinking you're going to want the most stylish place, somewhere you can entertain and, you know, get that good old materialism revved up when you look around and appreciate the beauty of your room. Right?"

Tyler and Jay were both amused now. "Yeah," Tyler agreed readily. "Sure."

"And I," Will concluded, "am the house nerd, the one who may blow us all up by accident in the middle of the night, by the way. The only thing I really need is a place to store all the chemicals and crap I'll have to haul home from the lab."

Tyler looked at Jay. "I think he's got this all worked out," he observed, grinning.

Will held up his hands for silence. "Now, you have veto rights, obviously, but here's my suggestion: Jay, the south bedroom's got that cool window that looks like a good place for sitting up with a book until all hours. Plus, it's the farthest from the street, so it should be quiet. I'm thinking that's the place for you. And Tyler, this bedroom with the loft, well, that's a love-nest if I ever saw one. I think that's yours. And the other room's got that walk-in closet, which is perfect for me, with all the stuff I'll need to store."

In a stage whisper, Jay said to Tyler, "You notice how the one guy who didn't even bring a suitcase wants the most closet space?"

Deadpan, Will responded, "I need a place to store the dead bodies."

His roommates burst out laughing. "That's fine with me," Tyler acquiesced easily to Will's plan. "Jay, any arguments?"

"No, I'm good with it." Jay regarded Will with an increased measure of respect as Tyler moved off into his room. "You settled that dispute pretty well. Did you have a bunch of brothers and sisters or something? "

Seeing an opening, Will answered off-handedly, "Nah, it was just me and my dad, actually."

He saw a spark of something nameless in Jay's eyes – something only someone like Will, who had also lost his father, would recognize – and congratulated himself for managing to slip in a me-and-dad comment on the first day.

Careful to keep it casual, Will continued without pause, "But I'm a problem-solver. That's what I like about chemistry: Neat little equations that always work out."

By nightfall, they had the house arranged into quite the comfortable bachelor-pad. Tyler suggested a beer-and-grocery run after they had each showered; since they didn't have a scrap of food in the house and were all starving, Will and Jay gratefully piled into Tyler's SUV. Will let Jay have shotgun, joking that tall people had priority in such matters, which set off a frenzy of good-humored ribbing about Will's stature.

An hour later, the fridge stocked with bologna, frozen pizzas, Jell-O pudding, ice cream bars and an assortment of beers – Guinness (for Tyler), Bud Light (for Jay), and Sam Adams (for Will) – and the cabinets filled with easy-to-fix staples like canned soup, macaroni, and, of course, peanutbutter, the three roommates collapsed in the living room and tuned into the Cubs game, which was just starting.

"Anybody up for pizza?" Tyler inquired, flipping open his cell phone. Seeing their hesitation, he added quickly, "My treat."

Will noted that Tyler had also insisted on purchasing the majority of the groceries – and that he had paid with a credit card. Apparently, Carlton's decision to tie off the purse strings had yet to impact his son's spending habits. Or was Tyler simply too proud to let on to his new roommates that he wasn't, for the time being, as filthy rich as everyone believed?

"Sounds good to me," Will said quickly.

He could tell Jay was a bit uncomfortable with someone else picking up the tab, but he couldn't very well refuse once Will had agreed, so that was settled and a potentially awkward conversation put off for another day. Will made a mental note to feel out just how proud Jay was when it came to money; it wouldn't do for Tyler to always be paying for things if it got under Jay's skin too badly.

They worked their way through two extra large, deep dish supreme pizzas and several beers apiece while cheering on the Cubs, who, as Will had come to expect, played rather poorly. He found it oddly endearing that neither Jay nor Tyler seemed to mind supporting a losing team. He wouldn't have expected that from either of them, actually; both were the sons of men who didn't take anything less than total victory lightly, although Colonel Burchell and Carlton Fog's battlefields were obviously quite different.

The game was just ending when Jay's cell phone rang. "Oh, excuse me," he said politely, jumping up and hurrying into the foyer. Over the announcer's voice, Will heard him say, "Hey, baby, how was your flight?"

Tyler raised his eyebrows at Will. "Girlfriend, you think?" he inquired.

Will, of course, knew the answer to that: Jay Burchell was in a two-year committed relationship with Kimberly Doherty, a blonde bombshell, originally from Queens, who had defied her parents' wishes that she marry her high school jock boyfriend by moving across the country to California, where she studied photography at UCLA. Doherty – no, Kim, dammit, he needed to think of these people as friends instead of marks – had proven to be a singularly gifted artist, a standout among hundreds of wannabe photographers in the City of Angels. She probably could have gone to work for just about any magazine or gallery of her choosing, but she had opted to accompany her boyfriend to New Haven, where she would be working on her MFA in photography while Jay went to law school. Currently, she was living in an apartment across town, since Jay refused to move in with her until they were married (he thought it looked bad) and he furthermore refused to get married until he was finished with school.

Like Will had told Maya, the guy was a Boy Scout. In Jay's position, with a gorgeous, fiery girl proclaiming her love for him, Will would have been at the altar in a heartbeat. Just like he would be with Maya, he thought, as soon as he was free to do so.

Realizing that Tyler was waiting on a response, Will commented, "I dunno. Maybe."

"How about you?" Tyler asked. The game had ended in a disappointing 7-2 loss; he switched off the television and sat up on the couch, where he had been sprawled during the game. Will was seated on the smaller sofa, his camcorder beside him. "You leave behind a girl up there in the cold northern woods?"

Maya's lithe form moving towards him in a breathtaking bikini flashed before Will's eyes. Only his impeccable self-control allowed him to say blithely, "Nah, nobody special. And you?"

"Determinedly single, my friend, and glad of it." Tyler washed down the last of his beer and stood, stretching. "I am wiped out. Think I'll go to bed. You got plans for tomorrow?"

Will shook his head. "Not really. Unpack. Find my classes. Buy books."

"Yeah, I need to do all that, too, unfortunately."

Heading for the kitchen, Tyler paused as his eyes fell on Will's camera. "What's that for?"

"Oh, this?" Will lifted the camera, pitching his tone to sound completely innocent. "This little baby was my graduation gift to myself when I finished at Bates a couple months ago. I'm planning to do a video blog, show the world what it's like to be a lowly Yale graduate student."

Tyler, ever the venture capitalist, was intrigued. "Make sure you copyright," he advised, continuing on to the kitchen. "People don't copyright their shit, and then somebody comes along and swipes it, and they're fucked."

"What are we copyrighting?" Jay had returned for the tail-end of their conversation.

"Will's video blog," Tyler called from the kitchen, where he was rummaging about for a bedtime snack, apparently. "Hey, Jay, where'd you put the Oreos?"

"Top shelf, near the back. Would you bring me some?" Jay called back.

"And me," Will chimed in. "A glass of milk'd be nice, too."

"Hey, who died and made me house mother?" Tyler complained. "Get your own damn cookies and milk."

Laughing, Jay and Will made their way into the kitchen, Will nonchalantly placing the camera on the counter. Jay instantly took the bait and asked permission to look at it; Will readily assented, dumping a handful of Oreos onto a plate and pouring – like a good roommate – each of them a tall glass of milk.

"A chemical engineer, a skilled arbitrator, and an aspiring journalist," Jay noted, handing the camera back to its owner a few minutes later. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you, Will?"

Flashing the trademark grin – _look how cute and innocent I am, how could you ever suspect me of anything _– Will quipped, "Renaissance man, that's me. Seriously," he went on, seizing the opportunity to introduce this vital element of the mission into the household, "I hope you guys aren't bothered by this, 'cause if you are, I mean obviously I'm not going to do anything to make problems in the house. But I think it'd be neat, to sort of tell the story of our lives here, three guys from different walks of life making their way through grad school and all that. I mean, I can just do my own thing, not involve you at all, but…"

He could see by their expressions that Jay and Tyler were both intrigued by the possibility of having their lives chronicled. Honestly, Will had expected no less; part of his training as an agent had been to learn people, to know people, and he had figured out that most people enjoyed being the star of their own shows.

"I don't mind it," Tyler answered first. "I think it's kinda cool, actually."

"I'm sort of camera shy," Jay confessed. "But my girlfriend, Kim, she's a photographer, so I guess I'd better get used to it, huh?"

Will took that as an assent. "Cool," he said, slipping the camera over his shoulder, eager to have it off the table – figuratively speaking – now that he had gotten what he wanted from them.

Changing the subject, he asked, "So that was your girlfriend on the phone, I take it? She still back in California?"

Jay told them all about Kim while they sat at the kitchen table and wolfed down most of the box of cookies. "She wanted to come by," he admitted, "but I told her to wait until tomorrow. I know we're all tired."

"Don't be silly," Tyler protested, slapping Jay on the back. "Call her up, bring her over. Have her bring her roommates. Are they hot?"

"I haven't seen them yet," Jay reminded him, grinning at Tyler's eagerness. "It's okay, tomorrow's soon enough."

"Yeah," Will agreed. He was too tired, in all honesty, to go through the ruse of more introductions, especially with an important figure in this operation like Jay's steady girlfriend, someone who would undoubtedly exert a great deal of influence over Jay's life. "We want her to see the Castle at its best, right? Not with beer bottles and pizza boxes all over the place."

Tyler regarded him curiously. "The Castle?" he echoed.

Will had stood and crossed the room to rinse his glass out at the sink. His back to his roommates, he answered casually, "Yeah, the Castle. Doesn't this place sorta look like a castle to you guys, with that little turret room and all?"

Will glanced surreptitiously over his shoulder to find his roommates sharing a knowing grin, one that said, _Country boy. _Will hid his own grin by quickly turning back to the sink, not letting them know that he had seen.

_Gotcha – hook, line and sinker._

If Jay and Tyler needed something to bond over, Will had decided that baseball and a bumpkin roommate were excellent places to start. Let them smile over his backwardness. Let them tease him about being less urbane than they were. He would take it all with the self-effacing Will Traveler affability they would, he was determined, come to know and love: He would be willing fodder for jokes they could all three laugh over together; he would create little codes that only the three of them would know – like calling their house "the Castle."

He would win their trusts and, little by little, their hearts. Will could already see that he was well on his way to doing so in just a few hours' time.

And if Will could also see that what Joseph had said to him was true – that Jay and Tyler would be people he could have become friends with in real life, that they would not be people he relished betraying – he told himself that he could remain detached, objective. He had his mission to consider. He had his future with Hometown to protect. Most important of all, he had Maya to think of, Maya who was counting on him to make their happy ending a reality by successfully completing this mission.

Will Traveler would be the best friend Jay Burchell or Tyler Fog had ever hoped to have. Only when it was too late would they realize he had actually been their worst enemy.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8:**

"**Charade"**

One thing Will had learned to spot on sight was trouble. And Kim Doherty was trouble if he had ever encountered it, Will saw that the instant she crossed the Castle's threshold with her arm linked through Jay's.

First off, Kim was a knock-out: Thick, honey-colored hair cascading past her shoulders, feisty blue eyes that begged someone to offer her a dare, oh-so-feminine curves poured into tight jeans and a Counting Crows tee-shirt. Wherever they went, Will knew immediately, Kim would be set upon by that significant portion of male students at Yale who, given that they came from wealth and privilege, believed themselves to be God's gift to women. In short, in every bar, restaurant and club around town, Kim would be hit on; therefore, Jay – and by his extension his roommates – would have to defend her honor, for such was the modern chivalric code.

Best not to engage in too many outings that involved Kim accompanying them, then, if it could at all be avoided. Just like in Deer Harbor, Will could not afford to attract too much attention to himself.

Second, and much more problematic, was that everything about Kim said here was a woman who knew what she wanted, went after it with fervor, and held onto it with ferocious tenacity once she got it. Kim had Jay, that much was obvious. The shrewd blue eyes which measured Will in a glance told him plainly she didn't intend to lose her man to law school, a hot young co-ed, or the bachelor life with his new roomies.

Yes, Kim Doherty was going to be a problem.

By necessity, Will had learned on his previous assignments how to handle potential threats like Kim – those individuals who, for whatever reason, could place a stumbling block in the way of successfully completing a mission. Unfortunately, the two most tried-and-true avenues for sidelining such a person were closed to Will in Kim's case: He could neither (a) seduce her and thereby gain some control over her, since stealing Jay's girlfriend would hardly engender the necessary trust and friendship with his new roommate; nor (b) blackmail her into submission, since he was supposed to be a squeaky-clean graduate student, not a backstabbing criminal as in his past undercover incarnations.

Sex and fear, the best weapons in Will's arsenal, had to remain locked away for this operation.

That left several more subtle options for defusing the threat. The first, of course, was to drive a wedge between Jay and Kim, to plant the seeds of doubt in Jay's mind about how tied down he wanted to be during law school, to tempt him with the possibility of greener pastures if he waited to settle down, to persuade him that Kim was really quite overbearing and possessive, not at all an ideal wife for a future attorney. Will seriously considered this because it would have eventually removed Kim from the picture entirely, giving him one less complication to worry over. In the end, however, he decided against that course of action for two reasons. For one thing, his plan seemed to be exactly the outcome Kim was guarding against – losing her man because of his roommates' single-life influences – and although he was normally quite confident in himself, Will wasn't at all sure he wanted to take on Kim in the war for Jay's loyalty and love.

More than that, though, Will didn't want to have to explain to Maya why he was breaking up two people who so obviously adored one another.

If the mission went as planned, obviously Kim and Jay were not going to have a happy, storybook life together anyway, Will reasoned. But the end of the operation was a long way off. And besides, Kim struck him as the stand-by-her-man type; she would probably even visit Jay in prison, declare his innocence to her grave.

_Best not to think about that, though – it just makes doing what I have to do harder…_

So Will opted for an even subtler approach than cutting Kim out of Jay's life: He decided to become her closest ally in her struggle to hold onto Jay.

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" was an axiom Will lived by.

During Kim's first visit on their second day in the Castle, Will feigned shyness so he could avoid saying much until he had sized her up. Her file had not done justice to just how strong-willed and independent she was; had she not stood between him and the completion of his mission, Will would have liked her immensely. As it was, he found that he did sort of like her anyhow, in the way that one couldn't help admiring a worthy adversary.

Acting tongue-tied around Kim served another function for Will's cover as well, by establishing him as the antithesis of Tyler's suaveness with the ladies and the least likely member of their trio to hook up with anyone in the coming months. Will had always intended this to be the case; he couldn't very well go leaving a trail of ex-lovers behind to attest that Will Traveler, who (like all of the young man's undercover personas) would become a ghost after this mission ended, had in fact existed.

With Maya consuming his every waking thought, Will was even more determined that this operation would not require him to become involved with any of the (admittedly attractive and intelligent) young women on campus.

Maya. Will fell asleep every night dreaming of her, recalling her voice, her smile, her laugh, her touch. He hoped she was missing him as desperately as he was missing her, but he didn't dare try to contact her to find out. Six weeks, he consoled himself. Six weeks and he would be with her again, for a few days at least.

Focusing on the operation helped distract Will from longing for Maya. He almost welcomed the challenge Kim presented just for this reason.

His charming bashfulness around the fairer sex firmly established, Will waited until the third day of classes to officially put his manipulation of Kim into action. He had memorized her schedule in addition to his roommates' so he could more easily anticipate their movements and thereby coordinate his own. As luck would have it, on Wednesdays, Will's Industrial Ecology seminar and Kim's History of Photography lecture both met in classrooms on the second floor of the university library, and both let out at ten minutes to noon. It seemed fate was on his side for once, for Will couldn't have arranged a more natural-looking encounter.

Will timed his exit from his classroom so that he would be one of the last people entering the hall. He suspected that Kim was the type of student to hang around after class talking to the professor, and as usual, he was right: They stepped into the hall at the same moment, just two doors apart.

Arranging his features into an expression of pleasant surprise, Will greeted her shyly, "Hi, Kim."

She looked startled – and not overly thrilled to see him, Will noted. The woman had thus far proved immune to the Traveler charm.

"Hi, Will," she said back, glancing toward the elevators as if wondering how to execute a fast getaway. "Aren't you a little far from the engineering labs?"

"Lecture class," Will explained. "Industrial Ecology, where we learn all about making sound environmental policy while we pollute the earth with insecticides."

He fell into step beside Kim as they walked to the elevators, punching the "down" button for her. He was careful to appear awkward and uncertain, stretching out the silence a bit longer than was comfortable before asking politely, "So…How's the first week going?"

"Hectic." Kim shifted her feet impatiently, obviously willing the elevator to hurry up and rescue her from this conversation.

Will bit back a grin. He was going to enjoy the task of making Kim like him in spite of herself, he realized. Everyone else had been so easy to win over; here at last was someone who was going to make him work for her friendship.

The elevator arrived, and they got on together. Because she had to, or else appear incredibly rude, Kim asked in return, "How about you? Settling in okay?"

"Yeah," Will answered, shifting his backpack to the other shoulder – chemical engineering textbooks weighed several tons, he was learning. "Honestly, though, I'd be doing better if the house wasn't always so crazy. I guess you've noticed that Tyler's appointed himself the School of Management's social director, and made our place his headquarters."

_Score one for the home team._

Will saw Kim instantly thaw at least ten degrees toward him as soon as he established his position on what Will was coming to think of as "the Tyler problem." Not that Tyler or his gatherings in the Castle's living room presented a problem for Will; in fact, he rather respected Tyler's determination to form an intellectual community with his peers. As aspiring business professionals, they all idolized Carlton Fog's son, and from what Will had overheard, Tyler was anxious to involve them in just as much serious discussion about finance and economics as he was eager to engage them all in drinking and partying.

Kim, on the other hand, was not so positive on Tyler's impromptu house parties. The dye had been cast when she walked in on Monday night, their third in the Castle and the first day of classes, to find a rail-thin, chain-smoking redhead named (of all things) Star hanging on Jay's every word regarding business law – and, to be fair to Kim, sitting a lot closer than was necessary on the spacious couch to do so. Will knew that Kim had already been predisposed to dislike her boyfriend's rich, womanizing roommate anyway; after breaking up that little scene with a few choice words to Jay in the kitchen, she had looked at Tyler like a large, annoying insect she badly wanted to crush beneath the heel of her stylish leather boots.

Operating on the logic that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Will had decided that the speediest way to Kim's heart was to align himself with her opinion regarding all things related to Tyler. At least while he was in her presence – with Tyler, Will intended to be as warm and laid-back as ever, for the sake of cultivating their budding friendship. Since he didn't feature Kim and Tyler spending loads of time together, the duplicity seemed unlikely to cause a problem. When they did all have to be together, Will speculated, he could simply fall back on his defining role as peacekeeper and do his best to placate both of them, which he knew Jay would certainly appreciate.

"So listen," Will said as the doors opened to the library's lobby, "I was wondering if maybe I could ask for your help with something."

Noticeably more friendly now, Kim replied readily, "Whatcha need?"

Will slid the digital camcorder from his bag and held it out to Kim. "I bought this a couple months ago. I want to use it to make a video blog," he explained, while Kim admired the fancy piece of equipment. "But I don't really know anything about cameras. I mean, I sort of get the general idea, but I know there's a lot of stuff to this thing that I'd never figure out how to work on my own. So I was thinking – I mean, only if you have time someday, not like right this second or anything – but I thought maybe you could show me how to use it?"

They had by then made their way outside into the soupy August heat. Will watched even more of Kim's reservations about him melt away as he waited hopefully for her response, the trademark Traveler grin hitched into place.

"I've got some time now," Kim at last decided. Will quashed a triumphant smirk in favor of a pleasantly-surprised smile that was more in-keeping with his character. She motioned toward the nearby student center, which was bustling with the noontime crowd. "You mind if we get a snack? I'm dying for something cold and something sweet."

And so began what would that autumn become a weekly Wednesday ritual: Will would wait for Kim by the library's elevators while she extracted herself from a gaggle of her photography classmates, and they would walk to the student center for an iced latte or a cappuccino (for Kim), a plain black coffee (for Will), two extra-large chocolate chip cookies, and an hour's conversation before Kim had to head off to her studio for the afternoon.

That first day, still strangers to one another, they mostly discussed Will's camera, here and there falling into other topics like where they had grown up and what they thought of Yale. In time they would work their way into more personal areas as Kim's trust in him increased and, Will admitted to himself, his brotherly affection for her mounted.

Their conversations often centered on the future – most often, by Will's design, on Kim's future with Jay, so he could gain more insight into his target's character. On their fourth "coffee date," as Jay jokingly termed their meetings (of which he seemed to whole-heartedly approve, not being at all the jealous type), Kim confided in Will that her biggest fear for their future was that a girl from Queens wouldn't measure up to the other high-powered corporate attorneys' wives, many of whom were true New England blue-bloods. Kim worried whether or not she would fit in, whether or not she would be happy trying to, whether or not she would deter Jay's career by not looking or acting the part she would be expected to play.

Listening to her, Will instantly thought of Maya, of how he had once compared her to Sela Langdon and found her wanting because Maya was not, in the end, the type of woman who could easily ignore or accept deception and cruelty. Recognizing that, on some level, he and Jay were in similar romantic situations, Will knew that at some point, Jay probably would – if he hadn't already – ask himself the same question about Kim: Could she survive in his world, and what sacrifices would be required of her in order to do so?

The conversation ended up casting a shadow across the sunny future Will had planned with Maya. Kim openly acknowledged her willingness to conform, in some ways, to the role of a wealthy lawyer's spouse; her politics, her background, her personal tastes she was willing to put aside, at least publicly, in order to facilitate her husband's career. But, she asked Will, swallowing a chunk of cookie, "Do you think that's enough, though? Just to play a part, I mean, around other people. Or am I really gonna have to become one of those snooty women who do nothing but plan charity auctions and punch out sons to carry on the family name?"

Grinning at her sardonic depiction of the stereotypical society wife, Will nevertheless knew Kim was quite serious. He treated her question with the respect it deserved and took a moment to gather his thoughts before answering.

The irony, of course, was that probably no one in Kim's acquaintance was better positioned to answer her question than Will, a man who had made a career out of playing a part. What Kim was proposing to do, however, would require a significantly different approach than going undercover: She would not assume a persona for a few months, inhabit it completely, and then toss it aside like a sweater she had outgrown. She would have to live this fiction, everyday, slipping in and out of her real skin in order to exist comfortably in Jay's world. Could anyone maintain their equilibrium, their true sense of self, while leading such a life?

Could Maya?

"I don't think it'd be enough for you to pretend, Kim," Will finally admitted. The words cut like daggers through his heart, but he forced himself to say them, out of a sense of loyalty not only to Kim but also to the woman he loved, whom he suspected would someday be asking herself these same questions. "I think in some ways, you would really have to change, if that's the life you and Jay decide to lead together."

Kim studied the foam on her cappuccino intently, her pretty face troubled. "I don't know if I can do that."

"You can," Will returned simply. "The real question is, do you want to?"

When they parted ways that afternoon, Will knew Kim had a lot to think about – and so did he. Like just how much of herself Maya would have to give up, would have to compromise, to join him in his world. Like just how much she would come to resent him for those changes. Like just how profoundly her transformation would alter their relationship, how far the shadow would extend into their lives, how deeply it would scar the happiness they stood to share.

No matter how many avenues he approached it from, however, Will always circled back to the same conclusion: Without the Partners' support, he and Maya could have no future together. For Will, there was no way out of Hometown; he had accepted when he signed up that his commitment was for life. And for Maya, there was no way in without agreeing to condone – indeed, to facilitate – actions she found deplorable.

Will couldn't help wondering what Maya would decide when the time came to make her choice. Did she love him enough to leave her world for his?

_Or maybe the question is, do I love her enough not to ask her to?_

Knowing he could drive himself crazy with such thoughts, Will tried not to entertain them for long – shorts bursts on his morning run, or in the shower, or as he drifted off to sleep. Otherwise, he focused on his mission.

In that spirit, Will naturally utilized his weekly chats with Kim to further Hometown's agenda. Befriending Jay's girlfriend, Will soon learned, provided the added benefit of enabling him to disseminate important points about his cover without having to find ways of bringing them up directly to his roommates – which wasn't always easy, given the general lack of communication about important life matters between young men. Will knew Kim told Jay what the two of them discussed; it was understood between them that she kept no secrets from her boyfriend, and anyway, their meetings were anything but clandestine. Thus Will knew that whatever he told Kim would eventually reach at least one of his target's ears.

In subsequent conversations, Will would tell Kim all about the research fellowship in aquatic chemistry he had been awarded, the one which financed his education since he had no other source of income. The one which also involved him returning to the lakes region of Maine every four to six weeks to take water and soil samples that could be tested for alkalinity and mineral stability. The story simultaneously added to Will's salt-of-the-earth appeal – here was a chemical engineer who wanted to protect the environment, not pollute it further – and explained the three- and four-day weekends he would need to spend in Deer Harbor (though his friends didn't know that was his exact destination) over the next two years.

Perhaps most importantly, it was through Kim that Will was able to pass along the sad tale of his father's drowning. From that day on, the friendship between Jay and Will was cemented beyond anyone doubt: Jay began to treat Will like his long-lost brother, eventually confiding in him about his own loss, taking Will into his confidence about his tumultuous relationship with his mother. Like a good friend, Will listened sympathetically; like a good spy, he took notes on how to twist Jay's grief into a reason to hate the American government.

By the time the middle of September rolled around, when his first scheduled meeting with Maya was at long last only days away, Will was absolutely satisfied with the progress of his mission and eager to report on it to Joseph. His life in New Haven had by then settled into a comfortable and effective charade in which Will excelled at his coursework while blending in with the crowd (he couldn't be too memorable with his professors and classmates, either), continuously built his relationship with his targets, and covertly gathered information about them that would be vital to giving the Partners their patsies.

Will's days followed a similar pattern, something like this: Each morning, he rose at five for his six-mile run around the quaint neighborhood surrounding the Castle. Monday through Friday, after his shower he would hear Jay upstairs lifting free weights while he, Will, made coffee and toast; around seven, Jay would come down, and the two of them would sit quietly at the kitchen table studying until eight, when they walked together to campus for their nine o'clock classes (Tyler, who was never up before ten, refused to take any class that started before noon). On the way, they would chat about baseball and Kim and politics and professors, then say goodbye and go their separate ways for the day.

Will's evenings were most often spent with Tyler, since the law students tended to congregate at the library to study until the wee hours. Tyler usually invited friends over during the week, but he always included Will in everything they did, whether it was playing Monopoly (they played for keeps, Will noticed) or watching a movie or just sitting around sipping wine and talking.

One thing Tyler's file had not captured was his sensitivity to anyone feeling left out. Having grown up, in his real life, the poor kid amongst rich jerks where he attended private school, Will had come to expect something quite different from people as rich and powerful as Tyler. While he despised Carlton Fog no less, day by day Will came to like the billionaire's son more and more as Tyler consistently took great pains to ensure that Will felt like part of the gang.

A chemical engineer becoming "part of the gang" amdist corporate sharks in training at first seemed like an impossibility. By dialing up his easy-going affability, though, Will was able to fit in quite well with Tyler's crowd. Mostly, he just appeared disinclined to contest their "expertise" on business matters and chimed in mainly to ask questions that allowed them all to show off their knowledge, which, like most people, they loved.

In fact, although he wasn't all that enamored of discussing inflation rates and risk premiums, Will found that he almost enjoyed hanging out with the fun, interesting people Tyler brought into the Castle five nights a week. That included Tyler himself.

By contriving to meet each target on his own territory (Jay at the study table, Tyler at the food-fun-and-drink table), Will was able to spend sufficient time alone with each one of his roommates to secure a solid bond with both of them. With Jay, Will molded his personality to fit Jay's; with Tyler, he molded his personality to fit Tyler's. Putting those two halves back together on the weekend, when the trio spent a considerable amount of time together so long as Jay wasn't off somewhere with Kim, proved quite easy. With both of his roommates, Will was a kind, loyal, humble, amiable and honest friend, someone they couldn't help but like.

Together, the three of them engaged in the typical pastimes of unmarried male graduate students in their early twenties: watching Cubs games, eating pizza, drinking beer, dining at trendy local restaurants Tyler drug them to (and paid for), playing football in the backyard, beating one another at videogames like Halo on Tyler's PlayStation, going to movies. Whenever they were all together, however, no matter how much fun they had, it became clear to Will that he was the glue holding their little tribe together. Jay and Tyler got along well enough, yet without Will to bring them closer, it seemed doubtful they would ever have become anything more than housemates who treated one another with civility and consideration.

Gradually, though, Will could see his roommates warming to one another. He did his utmost to bridge the gap between their worlds. It wasn't easy, yet for the most part, Will sensed that he was succeeding; slowly but surely, Jay and Tyler were becoming friends on their own terms.

They would need each other, Will sometimes reflected darkly, before the end…

The trio's weekend activities, like most of their lives, were also captured and chronicled on Will's digital camera. After six weeks, his roommates had become so accustomed to seeing the camera attached to Will's hand that they barely seemed to notice being filmed anymore; this was precisely what Will wanted, for them to become comfortable with the camera, to practically forget that it was there. And the more he showed them of his video blog, which centered exclusively on his roommates (Will, for obvious reasons, never allowing himself to be caught on video), the more willing Tyler especially became to open up in front of the camera, sharing his thoughts on whatever subject Will brought up as freely as if no one else would ever hear them. Even Jay, who remained (as he had initially warned) a little camera shy, responded favorably to seeing himself portrayed in such a flattering light; while never as loquacious as Tyler, he did eventually relax when the camera started rolling.

Yes, as the leaves in New Haven turned from green to red to gold, as jackets replaced shorts in the crisp autumn air, Will was succeeding on all fronts: winning his roommates' undying devotion and gathering reams of "evidence" – that was, odds and ends of their lives that could be manipulated into a case against them – to support the claim that Jay and Tyler were terrorists in disguise.

Sometimes, Will truly hated himself for what he was doing.

Then he thought about Maya, and about the vows he had taken to serve his country, and about the warning Joseph had given him. Then Will Traveler would step aside just long enough for the young man underneath to reaffirm his commitment to the operation.

An operation that, Will could see, was as complicated as it was devious. The layers of deception required for his success continued to multiply, as they did once again on the eve of his departure for Deer Harbor, when he received his first communiqué in six weeks from Joseph. The encrypted email message was quiet straight-forward, though it would, Will saw at once, involve a significant and clever effort on his part:

_Need you to find a way to have targets handle explosives, _the message read. _Do NOT draw attention from the authorities._

_Boy, that's not asking for much, Joseph…_

Okay, so, as a chemical engineering student Will had access to the materials one would need to create an explosive device – at least on a small scale. But if he wasn't supposed to have his roommates blow up something that would, as Joseph had put it, "draw attention from the authorities," what excuse could he give for having them handle such materials?

The answer came to him later that evening, a Thursday, while lounging on the sofa watching the Cubs get beaten by the Cardinals. It was one of those rare weeknights when Jay was also home; Kim, no doubt taking advantage of her boyfriend's free evening, had come over as well and seemed to be enjoying the game, too.

During a particularly abysmal portion of the sixth inning, during which the Cubs gave up six runs in a row, Tyler turned to Jay and asked, "So, are you joining in the annual law-school-versus-med-school battle?"

Jay shrugged noncommittally. "I dunno. It all seems kind of silly and juvenile to me."

Bewildered, Will put in, "What's the 'annual law-school-versus-med-school battle'? You guys compare cranium sizes or something?"

"More like egos," Kim replied sourly. She climbed off Jay's lap and headed for the kitchen, asking, "Anybody want more beer?"

"Me," all three boys responded in unison. She laughed.

"Seriously," Will prompted. His spy-senses were tingling: The word "battle" had conjured up images of grenades in his mind, and he had a strong hunch that somewhere in this conversation he just might find a way to innocently bring his roomies into contact with explosives. "What is it?"

Tyler patiently explained that every fall semester, the first-year law students and the first-year med students at Yale engaged in guerilla warfare to see which group could pull off the funniest, most sophisticated prank. Each group was allowed three tries. At the end of the competition – which usually had its big finale shortly before finals week, when people were so distracted by studying and so stressed out that they proved to be easy prey for practical jokes – every Yale grad student had the opportunity to vote by secret ballot (a blue slip of paper for the law school, a red slip of paper for the med school) for the winning side. The reward, Tyler admitted, was nothing more than pride – but for future doctors and lawyers, pride was enough.

"Sounds like fun," Will commented, popping the top on the Sam Adams handed to him by Kim. It honestly did, yet he had other reasons for wanting to ensure Jay's involvement with this. "So how 'bout it, Jay? You guys come up with any good ideas for your pranks?"

Jay shook his head, pausing for a moment to groan as the Cubs last batter of the inning went down swinging. As the game went to commercial, he confessed, "Nah, not really. Like I said, I haven't had much to do with it, but I heard some people talking about stuffing the anatomy class's cadavers with Twinkies."

Will and Tyler each laughed so hard they almost choked on their beer. Even Kim giggled. "How can you not want to be part of that?" Tyler demanded, holding his sides. "Damn, Jay, that would be hysterical."

"Yeah, but I think it's been done before, and we get points for originality," Jay rejoined.

Jay had put more thought into the contest than he wanted them to know, Will realized. He wasn't surprised. Jay liked to win, but more than that, he liked to fix things – he would see it as a personal responsibility to help his classmates do their best in the competition, whatever the outcome.

_You can do this. You've already set Will Traveler up as a little mischievous; now, just push it a little farther._

_Ready – set – go…_

"Don't all the med students live in the same dorm?" Will inquired, affecting a thoughtful tone.

Nodding, Jay confirmed, "Yeah, it's required for their first year, I think."

"Okay. So…what about a fire drill?"

Tyler, Jay and Kim all turned to him in surprise. Will flashed his trademark, "trust-me-with-your-life" grin that always proved so effective in bringing his friends around to his side.

"What's a fire drill?" Kim asked.

Knowing exactly what Jay's counterargument would be, Will craftily positioned himself for the strike. "Oh, you know," he informed them casually, as if it was common knowledge. "You pull a fire alarm to make people run out of a place, and then you bomb them with water balloons or something. Some guys and I did it my senior year," he added hastily, "as a Homecoming prank."

Tyler and Jay both appeared duly impressed by his daring. Even Kim regarded him with a new measure of respect, as if to say, _Maybe Will's not such a goodie-goodie after all._

Jay, however, reacted exactly as Will had known he would. "That's all well and good for a high school prank, I suppose," he countered. "But pulling a fire alarm when you know there's no fire is a federal offense, Will. I don't think this little piece of Yale tradition is worth going to prison over."

"Oh." Will was careful to appear sheepish.

"You really did that?" Tyler pressed Will. "At your high school, I mean?"

Will shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, the teachers never found out who did it. We hid in some bushes and threw the water balloons, then high-tailed it back to gym class before anybody knew we were missing."

Tyler shook his head. To Jay and Kim, he commented, "It's always the quiet ones."

Will hoped his companions didn't notice the involuntary shudder he couldn't quite suppress at Tyler's words. They had no way of knowing that Will's scheme was based on nothing so innocent as a senior class joke, but rather on the most horrific thing he had ever been asked to do for Hometown – which was saying something.

Will had been directed to employ the "fire drill technique," taught to him by Alex, at the end of his first undercover mission, nearly two years ago. At the time, he had been living for ten months in a rambling farmhouse on the Oklahoma prairie with seventeen other young men and women, all members of an independent militia led by a charismatic anarchist named Frank Limpkin. Limpkin had stockpiled a frightening amount of firepower on his ten-acre spread of land, yet he had never gone so far as to suggest that the group do anything with the weapons – he had trained them to fight, had indoctrinated them into wanting the American government pulled down, but he had not suggested that they actually take steps to make that happen, to put their training to use.

The Partners didn't care about Limpkin's real intentions, apparently – or perhaps they weren't prepared to wait until he decided to strike to take him down. In any event, after receiving his final directive, Will had, in the dead of night, planted three timed explosives inside the farmhouse, then hidden himself in the tall weeds several yards from the front porch with a long-range sniper rifle by his side.

The charges had detonated around dawn. Those who didn't die in the initial blasts had come stumbling, coughing and half-blinded by smoke, out the front door, where Will – whose name had not been Will then, but Isaah Street – had cut them down one by one.

He had always been an excellent marksman.

Afterwards, while Isaah Street was busy getting himself disappeared, Limpkin had been arrested for the murders: Agents from the Tulsa FBI field office had discovered him passed out drunk inside a nearby shed full of high-powered weapons and munitions later that morning. The murder weapon, the rifle, had lain beside him on the seat; his fingerprints had been found on what remained of the explosives.

No one had believed the crazed Vietnam vet that a young man named Issah Street had survived the carnage and was, in his opinion, responsible for it. No one had bought the ranting of a grizzle-bearded old man who was quickly painted as an American Osama bin Laden, a zealot who had been running a domestic terrorist training camp until he suddenly snapped – who knew why, with someone like that? – and murdered his recruits.

For just a moment, the Castle's living room faded away and Will could see the prairie grass in front of his face, smell the acrid smoke pouring from the house, hear the crack of the rifle and the screams of the dying as he carried out his orders. Unquestioningly, as always – the good soldier, to the bitter end.

Just like now.

Kim's voice jarred Will back to the present. "You could get them outside some other way, couldn't you?" she was saying.

To Will's surprise, Kim seemed genuinely intrigued by his suggestion. "Some other way than pulling a fire alarm, I mean," she added for clarification.

"Smoke bomb," Will said immediately.

By this time, the ballgame had been completely forgotten. Tyler even muted the television as he leaned forward excitedly. "You mean, like set off a smoke bomb in the dorm so they think there's a fire, but there's not?"

"That'd be the general idea, yes."

Jay tabled firmly, "No way, guys. I am not setting off a smoke bomb in a crowded dorm in the middle of the night. It could cause a panic. People might get hurt trying to get out."

Will conceded that his friend had a point. Joseph had been specific about making sure the authorities weren't involved, so even if he had thought it possible to persuade Jay – which he didn't – Will couldn't see the wisdom of going that route.

Instead, he offered, "How about a stink bomb? It works on the same principle," he explained, assuming the quintessential all-knowing science geek tone. "But all it does is create a bad smell, no smoke."

Will had Kim and Tyler, he could tell, but Jay was still on the fence. So he explained, cannily leaving out the details, implying that they should leave the chemistry to him, that it would be such a simple thing: Nothing more than a few chemicals mixed together, some ammonium sulfide ("Smells like rotten eggs," he told them), maybe even some butanethiol ("Eau de skunk," he joked), and then something for a delivery method of the stink-filled ampoule (nitric acid and a carbide if they wanted a small detonation, potassium nitrate and sugar if they wanted to use a small rocket). Nothing Will couldn't swipe from the chemistry lab. Nothing they would be in any serious trouble for using, not for a prank.

It would all be so simple, so innocent.

Jay held out the longest. "Wait, wait, wait. You're talking about maybe launching a rocket into a building. I don't care if it is a little rocket – what if somebody walked in front of it?"

Kim smacked Jay lightly on top of the head. "Stop being such a kill-joy," she admonished.

"No, he's got a point," Will said, falling back on the couch, his disappointment evident. He let the Traveler charm do its thing, let Jay see that his good friend Will was not going to push him into doing anything he wasn't comfortable doing. "It was a silly idea. I was just thinking out loud."

Tyler, however, was enamored of the concept and, with typical Fog tenacity, was not about to let it go. "C'mon, Jay," he wheedled. "This is a good idea, and you know it. This could be killer."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Jay shot back darkly.

Hoping to avoid a fight – that was certainly not the outcome he wanted – Will spoke up quickly, "Hey, guys, just forget it. It's a stupid tradition, right? Not worth getting worked up over."

But Tyler was determined. To Will, he said, "I say we present your proposition to our friend's classmates and see what they think of it. Jay doesn't have to be involved if he doesn't want to," Tyler went on, over the top of Jay's protests, "but that doesn't mean other people can't decide to take your idea and run with it."

"Jesus, man, what's your stake in this?" Jay demanded of Tyler, rather heatedly.

Regarding his roommate evenly, Tyler answered, "It's a point of pride, my friend. You're a member of this house. If your side loses, we look bad."

Will waited the space of a split-second to burst out laughing. Kim immediately joined in; Will couldn't tell if she, like him, was looking to prevent a fight, or if she was really that amused by Tyler's smooth response.

Almost in spite of himself, Jay grinned. "Okay," he relented, throwing up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, so, I'm being a stick-in-the-mud, I admit it. But we have to do something cooler than water balloons," he warned, as Will and Tyler slapped a celebratory high-five. "I'm thinking hoses or something like that, something with real firepower. Or 'water power,' I guess I should say."

Kim leaned over and kissed Jay hard on the lips, making Will suddenly miss Maya so badly his breath caught in his throat.

"That's the spirit, baby," she purred, falling into his lap. "You know how I love a bad boy."

"Get a room," Tyler muttered good-naturedly as he turned away from the lip-locked couple.

All at once, Tyler jumped to his feet. "Holy shit!" he cried, pointing at the television in disbelief. "Holy shit, you guys, look – they won! The Cubs won!"

"What?" Jay disentangled himself from Kim. "No way. They were down by twelve in the seventh."

"I know, but look," Tyler insisted.

Sure enough, while they had been plotting, their team had made an amazing comeback: They had defeated the Redbirds thirteen to twelve.

Something akin to mass hysteria ensued in the living room then, involving hugging, back-slapping, whooping, and toasting with fresh beers from the fridge.

"Man, what a night," Tyler declared a little later, after Jay had seen Kim off and the three of them were climbing the stairs for bed. "I cannot believe that win, can you guys? It must be a sign," he decided, stepping into his bedroom and grinning over his shoulder at them.

"A sign about what?" Jay wondered.

"A sign that we're gonna make those med students look like complete assholes," Tyler clarified, a wicked gleam in his eye. "What'd you say, Will, about us being fated to be roommates? I think maybe you were onto something there. I think maybe the baseball gods just decreed that we're gonna become legends on this campus."

_If you only knew…_

Jay laughed, shaking his head in bemusement. "We'll see about that, Tyler. For now, this legend has got to get some sleep."

Feeling slightly nauseous from guilt, Will quickly said good night himself and started into his own room. He had no more than crossed the threshold, however, when Tyler suddenly leaned around his doorway.

"Hey man," Tyler said, eyeing him with something that looked suspiciously like brotherly love. "Be careful this weekend, okay? We don't want your skinny little butt getting eaten by a bear or something."

Right then, Will knew Jay had told Tyler about Will's father, about how he had drowned while ice-fishing in northern Maine. Tyler's concern touched him, more so than Will would have liked at the moment, when he had just put another nail in their coffins.

"Thanks," he managed to say, smiling affably before closing his bedroom door.

Alone at last, Will fell across the bed, trying to think happy thoughts of the next day, when he would soon be with Maya. Try as he might, however, he couldn't chase Tyler's words out of his heads.

_"We're gonna become legends on this campus."_

If they only knew, Will thought again, staring helplessly at his ceiling. Over his head, concealed in the attic, lay two bags of "evidence" he would be transporting to Deer Harbor the next day, where he would begin to assemble a damning portrait of his two roommates as vicious, bloodthirsty killers bent on the destruction of the free world.

If they only knew how legendary Will was going to make them, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut tight as if that would somehow block out the awful truth. If they only knew who he really was, _what _he really was, their love for him would disappear in a second.

He consoled himself by remembering that when Jay and Tyler learned the truth about Will Traveler, he would already be long gone – a ghost, a fiction, a figment of their imaginations. Once the mission was over, Will would never see his roommates again. He wouldn't have to answer their accusing stares, wouldn't have to witness his betrayal reflected in their innocent faces.

Will didn't know if the relief that realization brought him made him a coward, or a monster, or a decent human being.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9:**

"**Portents"**

_Deer Harbor, Maine_

_Twenty months before Drexler bombing_

Maya had a bad feeling about Will's second return trip to Deer Harbor. She didn't know why; his first visit in mid-September had gone off without a hitch. They had even managed to have fun despite his work (which Maya tried to ignore, seeing as how the whole "following orders" subject remained quite raw between them) and their mutual agreement to play by the rules: Will had made her laugh and had smiled to see her smile; he had read to her in the evening before bed, massaging her feet in a way that suggested he badly wanted to touch more than her toes; he had kissed her sweetly on the cheek before taking his leave three days after his arrival.

She wanted to see Will. In point of fact, she was desperate to see Will; missing him gnawed at her like an insatiable hunger. And yet, she couldn't shake a sense of foreboding, couldn't escape the specter of impending doom hovering over her shoulder.

Something, Maya thought, was coming. Something bad.

Maya tried telling herself it was only the season – Halloween, when ghosts and goblins were on everyone's minds. Deer Harbor was all decked out for the ghoulish holiday: The shops along Main Street sported Jack-O-Lanterns and paper cut-out black cats and straw-stuffed witches and chalk-outlined ghosts in their windows. Maya's was no different; she always decorated the bookstore for different holidays, making sure to include seasonal books amidst the artful window displays fronting the sidewalk in order to tempt potential customers. After all, who didn't want to read _America's Favorite Hauntings _or _The Little Ghost Who Was Afraid of the Dark_?

Rationalizations that everything had gone smoothly last time and that she merely had spooks on the brain aside, by the time four o'clock Friday rolled around (Will's train was due in at six sharp), Maya was nevertheless so anxious she had bitten her fingernails down to the quick.

Outside, the late fall dusk was being sped along by gathering storm clouds hanging close over the town. The air felt thick and compressed, as if the sky really was falling. Maya stood at the shop's front window looking down Main Street, watching the distant lightning illuminating the bottoms of the clouds and the treetops in the city park beginning to sway as the cool autumn breeze picked up. Normally, she loved thunderstorms. This evening, however, the rumbling thunder seemed like a portent, like a sign of disaster speeding her way along with the ominous clouds.

_Well, I am about to continue helping the man – no, make that the spy, let's be honest for a second here – I'm crazy about frame two innocent people…_

Maya tried for the thousandth time in the last twelve weeks to push those thoughts away. She had finally managed to achieve a kind of dissonance during Will's last visit: As he had sat on her couch combing through hours of video footage of his roommates and pouring over dozens of pages of notes scribbled on yellow legal pads (about what, Maya didn't ask, nor did she have any desire to know), she had imagined that he was working on homework for his chemical engineering class. She had stood in the kitchen baking a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and had created an elaborate fantasy in which Will was really her boyfriend, really a graduate student at Yale, and was up for the weekend to visit her. A silly, absurd fantasy given the reality of their circumstances, to be sure, yet it had allowed her to look at Will with no less adoration once he filed his materials away in a series of brand-new fire-proof boxes in her basement.

She couldn't help wondering, however, if her father had done something similar with her mother when she was using. Had Thomas found some way to distinguish the "real" Lorelei from the heroine-craving fiend she became, just as Maya saw Will being sharply divided between the "real" man and the spy?

Hearing Will talk about his roommates after six weeks of sharing their lives, Maya had gotten the impression that even Will was trying to distance himself from the awfulness of his mission. He liked Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog, Maya could see it in his eyes when he described them, hear it in his voice when he recounted their numerous adventures. She could also tell that Will was both surprised and troubled by the fact that these were, after all, good people.

Maya snuck an anxious glance at the clock – only four-forty-five. Now that she wanted Will here, unlike on the night of his first-ever arrival on the Fourth of July, time seemed to be standing still.

The storm was much closer now, she noted, turning her attention back to the street. She hoped Will's train would arrive before the worst of it let loose; sometimes, the roads out to her house flooded during sudden downpours, and she didn't feature spending the night on the floor of her shop.

Although that could be kind of cozy…

Maya gave herself a mental shake. She needed to remember the rules. She also needed to stop pretending that Will wasn't a man who spent his days helping to fabricate elaborate conspiracies that would eventually ruin people's lives, she lectured herself. Will was who he was; he wasn't going to change, he had made that much clear. If she wasn't going to be able to stop herself from falling in love him – and she didn't think she could, not the way her heart pounded each time she thought about him – then she at least needed to start accepting him and his choices.

Accepting Will's life as a spy might have been easier to do had Maya not been suspicious that he wasn't quite so certain about that choice anymore, at least not where this mission was concerned. She had a hunch that after another six weeks as Will Traveler, best friend to Jay and Tyler, Will was going to be suffering an even larger crisis of conscience than he had been in mid-September.

Truthfully, Maya hoped that was the case. Deep down, she refused to believe that Will would really carry out these orders. Oh, she was terrified of what would happen to him if he didn't, and the last thing she wanted was for Will to be hurt (or worse). Nonetheless, she was even more terrified of what would happen to Jay, Tyler and their loved ones if the mission succeeded, and so far as she could tell, Will was the only person who actually gave a damn about them who also happened to be in a position to stop this madness.

Well, maybe not the only person – Maya was involved, of course…

Not for the first time, Maya thought of the boxes Will had stored in her basement. Boxes of "evidence" against Jay and Tyler. Boxes that could so easily be destroyed – dumped in the lake behind her house, perhaps, or unlocked and their contents burned. What stopped her from such sabotage, though, was the knowledge that if she interfered with Will's work, his employers would come after her. And then Will might die trying to save her.

Was it any wonder, Maya asked herself wryly as the first fat drop of rain struck the window, that she couldn't shake a sense of encroaching disaster?

The bell on the shop door suddenly clanged to life, startling Maya, who had been so intent on watching the storm and puzzling out her relationship with Will that she'd nearly forgotten she wasn't at home. Turning, she greeted who she supposed would be the final customer of the day.

"Looks like you barely beat the rain – "

Her words died in her throat.

Actually, all of the air in Maya's body seemed to leave her in one painful rush, like she had been punched in the gut. For there, standing just inside her doorway, was her brother.

_Jericho._

He looked horrible – thin as a scarecrow, filthy, cheeks hollow, eyes (pale blue-grey, mirror images of hers and their mother's) sunken into their sockets. His skin was dry and papery and sallow, the skin of an old man instead of a twenty-eight-year-old. All in all, he had the pallor and gauntness of someone being slowly devoured by a merciless disease.

Maya knew the name of that disease: It was Legion. Somedays it was heroine; somedays it was cocaine; somedays it was meth. In prison, she suspected, it had been whatever Jericho could trade either sex or cigarettes for in order to get a fix.

A million questions raced through Maya's mind as she stared dumbly at this wholly unexpected visitor. When had he been released from prison? Why hadn't the parole board phoned her, his next of kin? Why hadn't Jericho phoned her? How long did he intend to stay? What would she tell him about Will, who would be arriving in just over an hour? More problematically, what would Will say about Jericho's sudden reemergence in her life?

While Maya watched, trying to find her voice again, Jericho slipped a plain black baseball cap off his head, revealing an amateur crew-cut. Actually, it looked as if someone had taken a hacksaw to his soft blond curls, practically scalping him in places and leaving thick patches of white-blond fuzz in others. Maya took in this absurd hairstyle while simultaneously registering that the jeans and Chicago Bears sweatshirt he was wearing were several sizes too big, the pants literally tied onto his jutting hipbones with a cracked leather belt, and that the battered men's work boots he wore were caked with mud and grime.

Those weren't his clothes. And that haircut had been given a hurry, by someone trying to change his appearance – and fast.

Maya's chest constricted painfully as she tried to figure out why, of all the places he could have gone, Jericho would have run to her.

_And on tonight, of all nights, with Will coming here…_

"You escaped."

Maya spoke flatly; her voice sounded dull to her own ears. Jericho fixed his eyes on a spot over her left shoulder and nodded.

"When?"

"About five hours ago."

Maya knew the prison where her brother had been housed was near Augusta and that it was at least a three-hour drive from Deer Harbor. She had visited him there, once. He had been so strung out she hadn't bothered going back.

"How did you get here so fast?"

Jericho glanced quickly at her face. "Crawled into the back of a semi at a truck stop and got out when it pulled off at that rest area a few miles up the highway." He ran a hand self-consciously through what remained of his hair. "I, uh, I came here first 'cause I figured you'd be here instead of the house."

_Yeah, since we both know how many happy memories I have of that place…_

Maya was slowly recovering from the shock of finding her fugitive brother on her doorstep. A mixture of fear and anger set in, familiar enough where Jericho was concerned. Underneath the tumult of emotions, however, was a pervasive sense of calm: All day, she had heard the footsteps of doom approaching. Now that the nameless fear she had been dreading had finally arrived, she realized – and it came as a surprise to Maya, who didn't find herself particularly well-equipped for handling disaster – that she could deal with it.

"You can't stay here, Jericho," she told her brother firmly, moving away from the window to lock the shop door and flip the sign in the window to "closed." They certainly didn't want any last-minute customers rushing in and discovering a wanted fugitive in the bookstore.

Painfully aware that anyone walking down Main Street could witness this little family reunion, Maya motioned for Jericho to follow her into the office, out of sight of the windows. "You have to get out of here," she continued brusquely. "I'll be the first person they come to asking questions."

"I know."

Maya flopped into the chair behind her cluttered desk and stared at him, at this skeletal shell of a man that had once been her handsome, witty older brother. It was sickening, really, what he had done to himself – sickening and pathetic, she thought, with a measure of disgust accompanying her pity.

"So why come here?" she demanded. Behind her words was the unspoken accusation, _Why make more trouble for me? Haven't you already done enough?_

Jericho stared down at the tops of his shoes. "I need money, Maya. Enough money to get across the border into Canada."

She barked out a laugh before she could stop herself. Jericho glanced up at her, and Maya noted how puzzled he seemed: When he had been hauled off to prison, Maya realized, she had been little more than a frightened teenager, overwhelmed by the prolonged illness and excruciating death of her father, floundering to find her place in the world. Three years later, she had learned to take care of herself, to stand up for herself; she wasn't the mousy, bashful girl Jericho remembered.

She could see that her lack of cooperation irritated him. Jericho had expected an easy mark, then; he had expected to use the shock of his sudden appearance, her fear that he or both of them would be caught, and probably even intimidation if necessary in order to make her give him what he wanted.

Lies, manipulation and bullying had always been her brother's way. Maya had accepted long ago that Jericho did not really care about her or her father. He had never been a real brother to her – had never protected her, never taken up for her, never showed her the slightest affection unless it served his own ends. She had been more than a little afraid of him growing up, because his temper was so mercurial; more than once when Jericho was a teenager, his arguments with their father had come to blows, always initiated by Jericho in the heat of the moment.

Yes, as a child Maya had feared her brother. But not anymore.

Maya stood up. "I don't have any money to give you, Jericho," she told him honestly. "If that's what you're after, you came to the wrong place."

Jericho glared at her, something dangerous flashing in his eyes. "You've got Dad's life insurance," he argued, taking a step toward her.

Maya didn't budge. She stood her ground, as Will had the night Andy Pruitt advanced on him. She noticed that once he saw that she had no intention of retreating, Jericho didn't take a second step in her direction.

"Dad's life insurance went to pay for his medical bills. I even had to take money out of his savings to pay for the funeral."

"Well, you've got this place," he insisted stubbornly, gesturing toward the outer rooms of the bookshop. "It's gotta make some money."

Maya shook her head. "It makes enough to stay open and keep me from losing the house to the bank. That's it."

Jericho stared at her for a long moment, as if trying to read a lie in her eyes. Maya looked right back at him. She was telling the truth: She had no money to give him. She barely had enough for herself.

"What the fuck am I gonna do, Maya?" her brother burst out all at once. For the first time, she sensed that, underneath the fierce exterior, Jericho was afraid. "I'm so fucked right now. I-I…" He swallowed audibly. "I killed a guard."

_You stupid son of a bitch._

Part of Maya felt sorry for Jericho, for the mess he had made of his life. Another part of her, however, the part that had spent three years paying for his mistakes, closed off to compassion.

It was that part which allowed her to say coldly, "Then I suggest you get moving before the police show up here, because I am not going to hide you, Jericho."

"You're serious, aren't you?"

Maya regarded her brother evenly. She didn't know where on earth these reserves of strength had been stored all of her life – she had never thought of herself as a particularly tough person – but she found that her resolve was unflinching. She had no help to offer Jericho, and although she loved him, she wanted him to leave.

"Yes, Jericho, I'm serious," she answered patiently. "I'm sure the state police have called Sheriff Barker by now. He's probably out at the house this very minute, and when he doesn't find you there, this'll be the next place he looks. So I suggest," she went on, striding past her brother and into the stockroom, where a door opened into the alley behind the store, "that you put some distance between yourself and this town before he shows up and I have to tell him you were here."

Jericho's features settled into a familiar expression of self-pity. "You don't even care if I get caught, do you? All you care about is your precious store and your precious little life."

Maya's temper threatened to flare. She held it in check because she needed Jericho to leave before the police arrived; though he couldn't know it, she had her own reasons for not wanting to come to the attention of the authorities at the moment.

"I'm not calling the cops, am I?" Maya challenged. Jericho had no answer for this, other than a doleful stare. "I hope you make it to Canada, Jericho, and I hope you find a way to be safe and happy there, I really do. But this isn't something I can fix for you."

"Yeah," Jericho rejoined sulkily, "you hope I get away, but you won't help me, will you?"

"What would you like me to do, Jericho? Get in the car and drive you myself? I told you, I don't have any money."

Jericho abruptly came forward and gripped her by the shoulders. For a second, Maya thought he meant to attack her; then she saw the desperation and the terror in his eyes, saw that what he wanted was for her to, as she had said, "fix" this, because he was too frightened and weary to figure out what he should do next.

"Maya, you don't know what it's been like for me. It's…It's like hell in there. The guards beat you. The other prisoners beat you." Jericho jerked up the arm of his sweatshirt to reveal a sleeve of bruises extending from his wrist to his elbow. Maya's eyes stung with tears; no matter what he had done, she didn't want her brother to suffer.

"Everybody's got a grudge against somebody and everybody's looking to get fucked or to fight," Jericho continued, clutching at her, shaking her a little, as if by sheer force he could make her come up with a solution for his predicament. "But that's not the worst of it. The worst of it's that all day long, everyday, it's the same thing – nothing but time, and time, and more time. I just can't do it anymore," he finished sorrowfully. "I can't go back there, Maya. I'd rather die first."

Maya touched her brother's cheek gently, calming him, soothing him. "It's okay," she assured him softly. "I understand."

_Thank God_, she thought, _that Dad can't see him now – it would break his heart, what a wreck of a man his little boy has become._

Hearing Jericho describe his experiences in prison broke Maya's heart as well. He was, regardless of what he had done, her brother, her flesh and blood. Yet she couldn't help being wounded that he didn't seem to have given a second's thought to what she might have endured these past three years. Now wasn't the time to compare scars, obviously; nevertheless, Maya wished her brother could see that he had left her in a prison as well, trapped by nameless, faceless people who decreed who lived and who died like they were gods.

It wouldn't matter if he did know, she reasoned, carefully extracting herself from her brother's grip. The only person Jericho had ever really cared about was Jericho – that, too, he had inherited from their mother.

What it boiled down to, Maya decided, was that Jericho had come to her for help she didn't have to give. Sending him away empty-handed was not an act of revenge or callousness; she simply had nothing to offer him.

The storm had broken loose, Maya saw when she opened the back door. Rain pelted the ground; wind howled between buildings; thunder crashed with every frequent flash of lightning. Impulsively, she grabbed their father's old, battered raincoat off a peg by the door, where it had hung for as long as she could remember, and thrust it into her brother's hands.

"The rain'll make it hard for them to track you," she heard herself saying, in a voice far too calm and controlled to be her own. "Head for the woods and keep off the main roads. Don't look back, Jericho – I mean it. Just go."

Jericho narrowed his eyes at her, as if trying to convince himself that this self-possessed, unbending woman in front of him really was his little sister. "You're all grown up, Mai Tai," he observed at last, invoking her childhood pet name with a measure of affection beneath his weary tone. "Dad would be proud."

"Please, Jericho," Maya begged, expecting at any second to hear pounding on the front door and the sheriff calling for her. She also wasn't sure how long she could hold onto her new-found self-control; her eyes were burning, a sure sign that tears were not far off. "Please, you have to go."

Slipping the raincoat on over his sweatshirt, Jericho stepped out into the storm. He glanced back at her once to shout over his shoulder, "I'll call you when I can!"

_Did that just happen?_

Somehow, Maya knew she had to keep it together long enough to collect Will from the train station. Numbly, as her brother's slight figure disappeared between sheets of rain, she closed and locked the back door. In a kind of daze, operating practically on autopilot, she walked to her office to collect her messenger bag and began switching off lights inside the store. She would count down the cash drawer and assemble the bank deposit later, she decided. For now, she needed to clear out before the sheriff arrived with a host of questions she wasn't prepared to answer.

The clock on the wall read five-forty-two when she left by the front door. She had to go meet Will; she had to tell him about Jericho's escape. She needed him to tell her what to do, how to handle the police's inquiries so she didn't threaten his mission.

She needed him to tell her she had done the right thing by sending her brother off into the night, alone.

Maya's hands were shaking so badly she could hardly insert the key into the ignition. Finally, she managed to put the Jeep in drive and to navigate the rain-slick streets to the train station on the far edge of town.

_It'll all be okay once I'm with Will. He'll make everything right._

Maya believed this in her heart of hearts, believed it so unshakably that the instant she spotted Will on the platform, making his way toward her in a black trench coat with his head ducked against the slanting rain, she released the torrent of emotions she had been holding at bay and let her tears overflow.

Jumping into the passenger's seat and slamming the door against the storm, Will barely glanced at her as he dropped his backpack and his suitcase on the floorboard. The backpack, Maya knew, contained a few changes of clothes and toiletries; the much larger suitcase was filled with materials that would be used against his roommates in the months to come.

Will shook water out of his eyes, where it had dripped from his soaking-wet hair. "It's like the wrath of God – " he started, finally turning toward her with a warm smile of greeting.

Seeing the tears spilling silently down Maya's cheeks, he stopped cold. "What happened?" he demanded.

A wall automatically descended behind Will's eyes. Normally, that would have upset Maya, indicating as it did that some essential part of him – the "Will" part – had been disconnected and that another part of him – the part that followed orders unquestioningly, the part that could kill and fight and destroy – had taken control. Tonight, however, what Maya needed to see, what she needed to hear, was more than the kind, concerned face and gentle, reassuring words of the man she knew as Will Traveler: Tonight, she also needed the cool, unflappable gaze and steely, determined voice of the soldier who could handle whatever was thrown his way.

The story of Jericho's visit tumbled out of Maya in a confused, tearful tangle of choked sentences and strangled sobs. Will listened patiently, not interrupting, his expression somber yet calm, unruffled. _This is nothing, _his blue-green eyes seemed to tell her, holding her inside a level gaze. _We can survive this. Leave it to me._

When Maya finished, Will wordlessly reached out and pulled her against his chest. Sinking into his strong arms felt amazing; Maya clung to him, crying until her tears ran dry, until all she had left was a minor case of the hiccups.

Will held her until her breathing evened out, letting her regain her composure. When she was more under control, he held her at arm's length so he could look down into her face. "Maya, I need you to be certain before you answer this, okay?"

She nodded. Will's voice was gentle, but she could tell he was deathly serious.

"How sure are you that Jericho really left town? That he wouldn't tell you he was leaving and then head for your house anyway?"

Maya started. "I…"

Good Lord, how could it not have occurred to her that Jericho might have lied to her? How could she not have realized that he might have only pretended to run headlong into the stormy night, while actually planning to make his way out to their childhood home to see if she had lied about having money to give him? It would be so like him to save himself without paying any heed to what his survival might cost her.

"I don't know," she admitted, sitting back and mopping her wet cheeks with her shirt-sleeve.

Will edged back to his side of the front seat, lips pursed and brow furrowed. Maya stayed quiet to let him think. She was supremely confident that Will would figure this out. She only hoped her junkie brother hadn't placed the two of them in some sort of jeopardy with Will's employers – but surely they couldn't blame Will for their asset's brother breaking out of prison.

Could they?

"I need to make a call," Will at last decided. He took a cell phone out of his backpack – Jericho's backpack, Maya recalled with an unpleasant jolt in the region of her heart – and punched in a number from memory.

She waited for him to ask her to step out of the car. He didn't.

"It's me," Will said presently into the receiver. "I have a situation."

Briefly, Will recounted what Maya had just told him. Afterwards, he listened for several minutes, said, "I understand," and flipped the cell phone shut.

"We're not to go back to your place tonight," he informed her, stowing the phone in his bag. "Head for Caseyville. We'll get a motel. The cops won't come looking for you there."

Maya started the Jeep and headed out into the storm. Now that she had cried for her brother, now that they had a plan, she was feeling remarkably calm again. Calm enough to ask, "What's going to happen, Will? Are you in some kind of trouble over this?"

"No, of course not," he assured her. "That was my handler. He's going to take care of everything, so I don't want you to worry."

Maya liked the sound of that, yet she wanted some details. "And when you say 'take care of,' you mean…?"

"I mean he's going to contact the local authorities, make sure you aren't bothered over this. Keep them from getting search warrants for your house or anything like that. Keep them from coming around and pestering you with questions."

An image of the fire-proof boxes in her basement flashed through Maya's mind. She shivered. No, they certainly couldn't have the police poking around her house, or she really would be going to prison – for espionage.

"In the morning we'll head back to Deer Harbor, lay low for a couple of days while this blows over," Will went on. They were on the highway now, the wipers working hard to keep up with the pounding rain. "My handler'll probably toss the authorities a bone about your brother, get them looking far away from here."

Maya nodded. The plan sounded simple enough, except…

"And what about Jericho?" she inquired. "What if he comes back?"

Will shifted uncomfortably in the seat. "I doubt he'd do that," he tabled. "He's not stupid. He'll head for the border, and he'll either get caught or get across."

Something in his demeanor told Maya that Will was not being one-hundred percent honest with her. She kept her eyes on the road while pressing, again in that even, controlled voice which did not seem to belong to her, "And if he doesn't get caught and he doesn't get across? If he comes back?"

A beat of silence passed before Will turned to her and demanded bluntly, "Do you really want me to answer that? Do you really want to know?"

Maya started to open her mouth to say yes, of course, Jericho was her brother – if he was in danger, if he was in trouble, she wanted, she _needed_, to know that.

Didn't she?

Maya closed her mouth as the realization set in that, in all honesty, she did not want to know what Will's employers might do to her brother if he decided to seek refuge with her in Deer Harbor again. She did not even want to know if his employers were at this very instant tracking Jericho down; she did not want to carry the weight of that knowledge when she could do nothing, absolutely nothing, to prevent these shadowy figures from shipping Jericho back off to prison or, what was more likely, killing him.

Why torture herself? Why not put it in Will's hands, trust him to do what needed to be done?

_My God, he's your brother – listen to yourself…_

Maya heard that still, calm voice she did not recognize as her own echoing deep down inside of her. _Yes, _the voice agreed, _he's my brother, and he's an adult. He got himself – and me, for that matter – into this nightmare. He has to look out for his own future now. And I have to think of mine._

Maya's thoughts were so shocking to her that she hardly spoke for the rest of the drive to Caseyville. By the time she took the appropriate exit off the highway, she had decided that either she was acclimating remarkably well to Will's world or she was slowly becoming something less than human. Or were those one in the same?

"Pull over here," Will instructed, pointing at a clean-looking chain hotel toward the center of the small town.

The storm had apparently not been so fierce here, some twenty miles from Deer Harbor, for the town's October Fest, an annual Caseyville event attended by people from miles around, appeared to be in full swing. Teenagers and young families with small children and elderly couples wandered between refreshment stands selling candy apples, tents offering prizes for the best marksmanship with an air rifle, and carnival rides like a rickety Ferris wheel.

Taking it all in from the passenger's seat, Will inquired, "What's going on? Some kind of Halloween party or something?"

"Fall festival." Maya, accustomed now to being Will's access to all things related to Deer Harbor, immediately launched into a mini-lecture. "Caseyville does it every year. See, they've got like pin-the-tail-on-the-scarecrow and stuff, and there'll be a big hayride tomorrow night on Halloween. They even have gypsies," she pointed out jokingly, indicating a garish purple tent with a gaudily-painted sign that read "Madame Morphea's Fortune-Telling."

Will shook his head. "Small towns," he muttered. "Do you people celebrate everything?"

"Well," Maya admitted, unbuckling her seatbelt, "yes."

They shared a smile over that. Her tears spent, Maya felt somewhat rubbery on the inside, but her emotions were firmly under control now. She didn't know where the inner strength was stemming from, yet somehow, she was finding a way to deal with this latest twist in her upside-down, topsy-turvy life without falling totally to pieces.

Will registered them for a room as husband and wife, a Mr. and Mrs. Jack Lincoln. Maya stood at his elbow, trying to act natural and unconcerned, like she and the man beside her spent the night together all of the time.

Inside, however, she was thrumming with nervousness. She and Will, alone in a hotel room until dawn? When her nerves were already in a fragile state? When her defenses were down and he was obviously eager to comfort her?

She scented disaster. Again.

Will toted his backpack and suitcase upstairs. He had told the front desk clerk some tale about leaving one of their bags on the train, so the young man had cheerfully provided a toothbrush, comb, shampoo and robe for Maya – compliments, he said, of the house. Maya had barely listened. Her thoughts kept ping-ponging between Jericho (Was he safe? Was he hurt? Had he gotten away?) and Will (What did he wear to sleep in? Would he take the floor or stretch out beside her?), making it difficult for her to concentrate.

The room had a king-sized bed, onto which Will deposited his bags before turning to Maya, who was hovering uncertainly by the door. "You okay?" he asked, walking over to her.

She loved how the blue in his eyes deepened to sapphire when he was serious.

_Stop thinking like that. You know the rules – you can't break the rules with everything else that's going on…_

"I'm fine," she managed, summoning a weak smile. "It's just…What a shock, you know?"

Will nodded sympathetically. "I can't imagine. I'm sorry you had to go through that." He hesitantly lifted his fingertips to her cheek for the briefest second before turning away, adding as he did, "I'm sorry I wasn't there to deal with it for you."

Maya's knees went weak, as they so often did when Will proved to be impossibly sweet. He wanted to protect her. She adored that about him, even as this newly-discovered inner strength told her she didn't need all that much protecting, at least not in this circumstance.

Given how charged the atmosphere was between them, Maya couldn't imagine spending an entire evening alone together in the room. She might lose her mind trying not to think about everything she couldn't do with Will. Like kissing. And tangling her fingers in his hair. Or sliding his Yale tee-shirt off over his head and….

Maya blushed, glad Will couldn't read her mind. Although something in the way he was keeping a careful distance between them suggested he knew what direction her thoughts were running – and that perhaps his were headed down the same path.

Outside, the sounds of the small-town carnival could still be heard plainly. In spite of the fact that it felt like a lifetime had passed since her brother's arrival, Maya realized it was only seven o'clock. That left a lot of time to fill before they would need to go to sleep.

"Would you like to go down to the fair?" she asked Will, who was standing awkwardly by the window, peering out the curtain.

He looked at her, his expression registering surprise. "Are you feeling up to that?"

Maya blew out a shaky breath. The emotional roller-coaster of the past three hours had exhausted her, no doubt, yet sleep wasn't even a remote possibility at the moment, not with her mind and her heart both full to bursting over Jericho. And Will.

"I'd kind of like the distraction," she confessed. Suddenly realizing that perhaps Will, who had after all spent the last several hours on a train, was too tired to entertain her, she added hastily, "But we don't have to if you'd rather rest, or work…"

"No. The fair sounds like a good plan." Will, apparently, had no more desire to spend the evening staving off their mutual attraction than Maya did. "But you gotta buy me a candy apple. I've never had one."

Maya laughed. Being with Will was good for her soul; he made her happy, even in the midst of her life coming apart at the seams. "Done," she promised. "As long as you win me a stuffed bear – I always wanted a guy to do that for me."

They strolled hand-in-hand (they were supposed to be husband and wife, after all) down Caseyville's Main Street, which for the evening had been transformed into a kind of boardwalk. Maya bought each of them a candy apple on a stick; they ate the gooey, nut-covered treats at a picnic table inside the Rotary Club's tent, where a local blue-grass band was playing. Later, they rode the Ferris wheel and the Tilt-A-Whirl. Maya found the cool night air whipping across her cheeks soothing, though Will insisted that she wear his coat, since in her haste she hadn't thought to grab hers from the store.

"So a stuffed bear, huh?" Will mused as they stepped off the Tilt-A-Whirl.

Maya giggled self-consciously. "I was always so jealous of the girls in high school who had boyfriends to win them stuff like that."

"What, no high school sweethearts in your sordid past?" Will inquired, tugging her closer and sliding his arm around her waist.

"I dated – a little. But no, nobody special." Maya glanced sideways at Will, wondering if he would answer her next question honestly, from his real past. "You?"

Will dropped a gentle kiss into her hair. "Will Traveler would've had eyes only for you in high school," he murmured in her ear.

Maya's stomach flip-flopped. With an answer like that, how could she be disappointed that he hadn't responded openly?

Surveying the games located along the boardwalk – Ski-Ball, Duck Grab, Rifle Range – Will finally settled on the shooting gallery. As they approached, a greasy-haired, wiry man of fifty or so greeted them loudly, "Hullo, hullo, step on up! Gonna win a prize for the pretty lady, my friend?"

"That's the general idea," Will answered amicably, accepting the battered air rifle the man handed across the counter to him. "What're the rules?"

The carnie pointed at a series of twelve metal, soldier-shaped figures staggered against a blue-felt background. "Gotta hit four to get a prize," he explained. "Four gets ya a choice of the monkey or the gorilla," he held up two cheap-looking stuffed animals, "and eight'll get ya a choice of the heart pillow or the puppy dog," more chintzy toys were produced, "and ya get all twelve, you win the big teddy bear up there." He gestured toward an enormous, tawny-colored plush bear hanging from the tent's ceiling.

Will forked over three dollars for his attempt. The carnie stepped back, smirking. Maya could tell what he was thinking – _Sucker. _Certainly, Will didn't appear to be much of a marksman. With his soft, sandy-colored hair, petite stature and boyish grin, he looked like he would be much more at home in a library than on a rifle range.

It occurred to Maya that she had no idea whether or not Will could shoot. He could fight, she knew that, but beating the living daylights out of someone wasn't quite the same as being a master marksman.

As soon as Will shouldered the air rifle, however, Maya knew the bear was hers. She didn't have much experience with weapons herself (guns made her nervous), but a place like Deer Harbor had more than its fair share of hunting enthusiasts – including her father when he was alive – so she knew what someone who could handle a weapon looked like.

Will held the air rifle as if it were a natural extension of his hand. He sighted down the scope, shifting a little to the left (Maya assumed the weapon was misaligned, a typical carnival trick) before squeezing off twelve quick, perfectly-placed shots.

_Ping ping ping ping…_

Four targets down.

_Ping ping ping ping…_

Eight targets down.

_Ping ping ping ping…_

As the twelfth metal figure rocked back from the force of the air-pellet, Will lowered the rifle and winked at Maya. Her heart fluttered. She didn't normally approve of violence, but she had to admit, Will looked damn sexy holding a gun.

"Well done, my friend," the carnie congratulated Will, duly impressed. He unhooked the bear and handed it across to Maya, who squeezed it to her chest, grinning from ear to ear. "Been a long while since I seen anybody get 'em all like that on the first try. You enjoy that prize now, pretty lady."

"I will," Maya said back, waving as they walked away.

Will draped his arm around her shoulders. "So now you've had a guy win you a stuffed bear from the carnival. Happy?"

Maya knew what he was really asking: Was she okay, after everything that had happened with her brother a few hours earlier? She considered his question. On the one hand, no, she wasn't all right – she was scared for Jericho, scared that he would be caught and shipped back to prison for a very, very long time, scared that he might be murdered by these terrible people Will worked for, scared that he could harm himself if he thought his escape wasn't going to work out. She was also worried for herself, dreading the headlines in the local paper the next day, the covert glances and whispered gossip she would have to endure until this latest Sanders family scandal died down, and fearing that Will's employers might not be able to protect her from police scrutiny entirely, which would only complicate her life further.

On the other hand, however, she was happy to be here with Will, to be able to openly hold his hand and walk with his arm around her. So happy that she felt relaxed and calm in spite of her circumstances. Maya didn't know how she would have gotten through the evening without the fascinatingly enigmatic man by her side who was taking such pains to distract her from her woes.

"Yes," Maya answered at length, smiling up at Will. "I am happy. Happy you're here."

"Me, too."

Will slowed his steps. They were nearly back to the hotel; it was going on ten, and Maya knew they should be thinking about getting some rest. Tomorrow they would have to return to Deer Harbor, deal with any fall-out from Jericho's escape, and compile evidence against Will's roommates – not very appetizing prospects, any of them. Maya could tell Will didn't want the evening to end anymore than she did. It was a little like being in Fairyland, to have an excuse to show their affection for one another so publicly, so fearlessly.

"Good evening."

Maya and Will both jumped at the low, accented voice that sounded unexpectedly behind them. Whirling around, Maya found herself staring at a stooped, ancient-looking woman – crone, that was the first descriptor that came to mind – seated in front of "Madame Morphea's Fortune-Telling" booth. Because the old woman was swathed head-to-toe in a hooded velvet robe the same shade of purple as her tent, and because her sidestall was located a good distance from the lights of the fair, she had been practically invisible until she spoke.

"Good evening," Maya managed to reply politely. For some reason, her heart refused to stop pounding; she knew it was more than the sudden jolt of hearing a voice out of seemingly nowhere. The feeling of impending doom crept up on her once more. She hugged the stuffed bear tightly to her chest, as if it could offer some protection against whatever new disaster awaited.

The old woman – Madame Morphea, Maya supposed – crooked a finger in their direction and stepped into her tent. "Come," she called in her strange, dreamy voice. "Come in."

Will arched his eyebrows at Maya, a rather devilish gleam in his eyes. "Want to?" he whispered.

Maya hesitated. Instinct told her to head directly back to the hotel; logic told her to stop being a superstitious ninny. Madame Morphea was not a psychic. She was a poor old lady who lived a hard, miserable life traveling from town to town parting silly fair-goers from their dollars. Her tent, her "predictions," were nothing to fear.

"Okay," Maya relented, against her better judgment. Will took her hand and led her forward.

Inside, the tent was hazy from the smoke of spicy incense burning in long sticks scattered around the small, almost claustrophobic space. The only light came from a large pillar candle situated on a tall stand in the corner; shadows danced as the flame swayed in the breeze seeping in around the tent flap.

Madame Morphea was already seated on one side of a small, circular table, in the center of which rested, as expected, a crystal ball. She motioned Will and Maya into two folding chairs (draped, for effect, in black scarves) opposite her. Maya placed the bear on her lap and scooted as close to Will as possible.

The darkness, the old woman, the smoke – it all gave her the creeps, she had to admit.

"How much?" Will asked.

Madame Morphea shook her head, causing her chandelier earrings and layered, beaded necklaces to jangle. "Not for you, my sweet. For you, free."

Maya tried to place the woman's accent: German? Finnish? Eastern European? Her voice was so rough, so low and deep, it was difficult to discern.

Pooled in shadow, the old woman nearly disappeared into the smoky, aromatic darkness. Maya felt light-headed and wondered if the old lady burned some sort of hash along with her incense – or if it was merely her anxiety, her sense of foreboding, making her feel so peculiar. By her side, Will seemed perfectly at ease, so she ordered herself to relax and have fun.

Madame Morphea leaned forward, her gnarled fingers and talon-like nails hovering millimeters above the crystal ball. A long silence ensued before she finally declared, nodding in Will's direction, "You are Cancer."

"That's right," he replied evenly. "My birthday's the end of July."

_How the hell did she know that?_

Madame Morphea paused again. At length, she said to Maya, "You are Capricorn."

How in the world did this woman know their birthdays? The hair on the back of Maya's neck stood up. This didn't feel like a carnival hoax, like a misaligned air rifle or an off-center Ski-Ball hole. Something felt…wrong, off, uncanny.

Not wanting to be a kill-joy, Maya tried for a light tone to match Will's, thinking surely there was a trick here somewhere. "Yup, January third, that's my birthday."

"The Crab and the Sea Goat," Madame Morphea mused. "This is a difficult match, but a good one. Powerful feelings. Strong attraction."

Maya could see nothing of the old woman's face, and she found it truly unnerving to sit in near-total darkness listening to a practically disembodied voice predicting their futures. Smoke from the incense curled around her head, so sickeningly sweet Maya had to choke back a cough.

Madame Morphea was a wonderful performer, Maya noted as the old woman suddenly barked out, "You are Water," and stabbed a finger toward Will. Maya jumped a mile; beside her, Will chuckled, apparently unaffected by the woman's odd demeanor.

The fortune-teller continued, "You," this was to Maya, "my lovely girl, are Earth. The bond between Water and Earth is undeniable. Each needs the other to survive: Earth must have Water to give it life, Water must have Earth to have a place it can exist."

Angling slightly toward Maya, the old woman explained, "He brings you a new life where the old one has died. You bring him safety, give him a home, where he has none."

_My God, this is so weird – let's get out of here, something isn't right…_

Will's fingers sought out Maya's underneath the table. "So what's in store for us?" he asked Madame Morphea smoothly, though Maya thought she detected a subtle hint of unease in his otherwise nonchalant query.

The dense, perfumed air was beginning to stick in Maya's lungs. She could hardly drag a full breath into herself; her head was started to swim from lack of oxygen.

"You must learn to compromise," the old woman went on sagely. "Cancer and Capricorn, these are strong-willed signs. Both like to lead. You must let him lead," she ordered Maya, quite gruffly.

"You walk into the shadow," Madame Morphea abruptly declared, her voice becoming so harsh and otherworldly that even Will bristled, sitting up straighter and tightening his grip on Maya's hand. "I see this in the crystal – it is there, a shadow on your futures. On the other side waits the sun, but Water must find the way through the dark. You," she gestured at Will, the dozens of slender bracelets on her emaciated arm clanking together. "You must find the path. Do not fall in love with the darkness. The shadow is not your destiny."

Maya honestly thought she was going to hyperventilate: She seemed to be suffocating in the dense, smoky atmosphere. "Will," she managed thinly, desperately. "I'm sick…"

"We're going." He was helping her to her feet already, apparently as unnerved by the old woman's words as Maya was. Hastily ushering her toward the exit, he added distractedly to the old woman, "Thanks, uh, for the…reading, or whatever."

Madame Morphea's warning drifted after them: "Find the sun. Leave the shadows."

"Jesus, what a freak show," Will muttered, drawing Maya away from the tent and down the sidewalk a short distance to a wooden bench. She was shaking like a leaf; he pulled her down beside him, his face a mask of concern. "Maya, hey, what's wrong? You're white as a sheet. Are you okay?"

_Leave the shadows; find the sun_. Madame Morphea's words echoed hauntingly in Maya's clouded mind. She felt drugged, dazed, unable to make sense of what she was certain was a warning, an omen of ill tidings, behind the strange old woman's riddle.

_Will lives in the shadows. Does she mean he has to walk away from his work if we're going to be together? _

_What the hell is wrong with me? Three hours ago I had it totally together. Now I'm a complete mess…_

Maya ordered herself to focus on breathing. The crisp night air quickly revived her; her mind began to clear, and she could feel color returning to her cheeks.

She was being silly, Maya decided, for reading anything into an old charlatan's words. Probably Madame Morphea identified a young couple in every town she visited whom she could knock off-kilter with cryptic warnings; probably she found it to be good for drumming up business when she returned, because people would have heard from the couple that she was a very convincing fortune-teller. Had she not just suffered a terrible shock from discovering that her brother had escaped from prison, Maya consoled herself, she would never have been so troubled by the supposed prediction.

"I'm sorry," she said to Will, who appeared truly alarmed. "It's just been such a strange night, and then I couldn't breathe in there…"

"You're tired. We should have stayed in and rested." Will sounded angry with himself for not taking better care of her. He helped Maya to her feet – she was still a bit unsteady – and wrapped his arm securely around her waist. "C'mon, we'll go back and you can take a hot shower and lie down, okay? Everything's okay, Maya, it really is."

Maya allowed herself to be led along, to be pampered and fussed over once they returned to the room. Will ran her a hot bath and then went across the street to an all-night café to buy her a cup of hot tea while she soaked. Maya lingered in the tub a long time, mulling over what Madame Morphea had said, knowing it was all so much drivel but nonetheless finding herself intrigued by what the old woman had indicated.

Will was Water; she was Earth. Water needed Earth to exist, the old woman had said – and wasn't that what she was for Will, a safe place to come home to, a haven inside his crazy, dangerous world? She liked to think that she was. She wanted to be that for him. And he had certainly brought her a new life. Maya wasn't thrilled about everything that went along with it, all of the deception and betrayal and cruelty, yet she couldn't deny that before July Fourth, she had been leading a bland, colorless existence. She hadn't even realized how empty her life had become until she had started falling in love with Will and found something worth living for again.

And they were walking in shadows. Hemmed in by shadows, in fact – shadows cast by the unseen figures who lurked in their lives, Will's employers, these phantoms who dictated and observed their every move. Maya wondered what the old woman had meant by finding the sun. Did they have a shot at a happy ending after all? Or was that nothing more than a sales pitch, a way to ensure return business? After all, people hated to hear bad news…

When she finally emerged from the bath, wearing Will's Yale tee-shirt underneath the robe the hotel had provided for her, Maya found the object of her affection sound asleep atop the covers. A Styrofoam cup of hot tea, now ice-cold, sat on the bedside table next to the bear he had won for her; she smiled, touched by Will's tenderness, his caring. He looked angelic in sleep, lost in what she hoped were peaceful dreams, though she recalled with a grin how not-so-angelic he had looked with an air rifle pressed to his shoulder.

He also looked quite tempting lying there sprawled across the bed, one arm resting on his bare stomach (apparently, the answer to her earlier question of what Will wore to sleep in was nothing but a tattered pair of black sweatpants) and the other curved above his head, his lips slightly parted. Maya quite nearly lost the battle with her self-control when she imagined stretching out on top of him and kissing down the length of his tanned, muscular chest.

What stopped her was knowing how unfair that would be to Will, for he would be the one who would have to call a halt to things – again – or risk both of their lives. Maya sighed quietly. She hoped, for the sake of her poor, bruised heart, that Madame Morphea was right, that a sunny future lay ahead for them if they could only wind their way through the shadows.

Maya hoped it wouldn't take them long to reach that brighter place. The truth was, Maya admitted to herself as she lay down on the far side of the bed, sliding carefully under the covers so as not to disturb Will, she was more than a bit unsettled by how easily she had turned Jericho away that evening and by how quickly she had put his predicament out of her mind. Not to mention by how readily she had accepted that Will and his employers should be the ones to handle the entire situation, to essentially make it go away.

Perhaps, Maya thought as she began to drift off into sleep, Jericho's reappearance and Madame Morphea's predictions were not the things she had feared. Perhaps those were the portents, the warnings to her that she needed to keep searching for the sun, not to become comfortable in the shadows. Because the longer she remained there, shielded from the warm rays, the more she seemed to be changing; the more the light seemed to be seeping from her heart, to be replaced by a cold darkness not unlike what she occasionally saw lurking behind Will's eyes.

Such darkness, Maya feared, could devour them whole.

_**Author's Note: **__Thanks ever so much (and again) to Song for giving me the idea, a few reviews back, of Jericho popping back into Maya's life – I promise, we have not seen the last of him yet! Also, I apologize in advance if the next post is a bit delayed. I have a lot going on at work right now, plus my birthday is this weekend and I'm traveling some in the next few weeks. But I promise the story will continue, as soon as I get a free moment to work on it. (Reviews motivate me, by the way…)_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10:**

"**Angels and Demons"**

Will knew he was hurt. He just didn't know how badly.

He tried to open his eyes, but the lids seemed sealed shut. He tried to raise his arms, but they seemed weighted to his sides. Panic began to set in as he fought against the enveloping blackness.

There – eyes open. Will breathed a quick sigh of relief, then instantly began to cough as thick, acrid smoke filled his lungs. His eyes burned as he strained to see through the dense haze, but he could make out little more than blurry shapes, nothing to tell him what might have happened, or where he was.

An explosion, he thought, not knowing how he could possibly know that. An explosion, and then a fire, and now he was hurt, he was trapped, he couldn't move – and the smoke was choking him…

Will forced himself to remain calm, to assess the situation. Turning his head, he could just distinguish a mangled form lying beside him: Red tee-shirt, muscular arm, dark curls, Cubs cap.

Oh no. Jay.

Reaching for his friend, Will caught sight of his own hand and froze. The flesh on his fingers appeared to have been boiled; it was lobster-red and blistered. His stomach churned with fear as he forced his body into a sitting position; in horror, he stared down at what remained of himself: twisted legs ending in bloody splinters, guts spilling onto his lap from a shredded torso.

Will tried to scream and realized he couldn't open his mouth. His fingers flew to his face and pressed against burnt, blackened skin, came away bloody.

He was maimed, Will thought desperately, maimed and probably dying. And Jay was already dead beside him. Somewhere inside this smoky hell, Tyler was screaming, screaming for help that would never come. Will tried to call back, to tell Tyler to get Jay and get out, but he couldn't force his lips apart; they seemed to have melted together.

This was all his fault, Will knew. All his fault for leading them here when he should have gotten them to safety –

_I'm sorry – Jay, Tyler, I'm so sorry – please get out, just leave me, just go…_

Will awoke with a start to find himself tangled in the covers of the hotel room's king-sized bed, his hair and skin soaked with sweat. He clutched at his stomach, ran a hand over his face, reassuring himself that he was, after all, still in one piece, that he had not been blown to bits and burned beyond recognition in some terrible explosion. As the vividness of the nightmare slowly faded, leaving him chilled and trembling, Will repeated over and over to himself, _It was just a dream; it was just a dream; it was just a dream…_

They weren't "just dreams," though, not really. Night terrors, the psychology books called them: Dreams so horrifyingly real, the dreamer would often wake screaming and kicking and fighting against imaginary horrors. A common side-effect of severe depression, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The devil within, Alex had called them when Will started having the dreams during his first phase of Hometown training. He would wake in the middle of the night shrieking, tears streaming down his face, sweat rolling off him in buckets; Alex would rush in to sit calmly beside him, stroking his forehead, bringing him back to the present, to reality. She had seen this before, she had assured him, when he had worried that he was weak, unfit for this sort of work. It happened to most new operatives, she had said, especially those who were as young as Will (barely nineteen) when they began working as assassins.

In time, Alex had taught Will how to compartmentalize, how to shut down essential parts of himself while carrying out his orders. Oh, she'd had other ways of easing him back into peaceful dreams, too, ways Will was fairly certain were not listed amongst the approved curriculum for training Hometown agents; Alex was one of those sensuous women who enjoyed love-making and eschewed turning what was nothing more than a sexual encounter into a romance, which Will assumed was why the Partners had turned a blind eye to their sweet, uncomplicated nighttime escapades. Either that, or Seduction 101 was actually part of the training process.

But Alex had offered much more than physical solace: She had equipped Will with the necessary objectivity to do his job, and do it well, without losing his mind.

Eventually, the dreams had tapered off. In fact, Will hadn't experienced a night terror in more than two years, so it unsettled him that the dreams should resume now. He was already concerned about his ability to remain objective while framing two men he genuinely liked for terrorism and while becoming more and more infatuated with his asset. That the demons in his mind should fight their way free to torment him now struck Will as ominous, as more evidence that he was in over his head.

But what could he do? Will had puzzled over this question dozens of times in the past twelve weeks. He could not disobey his orders; not only would the Partners kill him, he also couldn't bring himself to betray his country – in his real childhood, the young man had been raised to believe that duty always came first. He could not break his vows to Hometown. At the same time, he could not deny that he disagreed with what he had been ordered to do to Jay and Tyler.

Had it not been for his determination to secure a future for himself with Maya, Will wondered if he would have been quite so conscientious in ensuring that the frame job against his roommates would hold up. Doing a bad job wasn't quite the same thing as disobeying orders, he reasoned. Yet if he wanted enough standing within Hometown to ask the Partners' permission to make Maya a permanent part of his life, he had to do an excellent job – the best job, in fact, that he had ever done.

Feeling steadier the longer he was awake, Will glanced at the bedside clock and noted that at least his internal alarm had not been disturbed by the nightmare: The clock read precisely five-thirty. He rolled over to find Maya still sleeping peacefully. She must have been exhausted, he thought, not to have awoken during his thrashing about; he suspected the ordeal with her brother had drained her physically as well as emotionally. He remembered with a pang how truly ill she had seemed the night before, when he had so stupidly and inconsiderately drug her into that crazy hag's tent. Will was still angry with himself over that decision. Not to mention unnerved by how spot-on the old lady's reading of their situation had proven.

Maya looked deceptively peaceful while asleep, but Will understood that she had been facing her own private hell these last three months. She was a good sport about their circumstances, no doubt; on his first visit, she had gamely ignored the despicable work Will performed while sitting on her couch, and she had not once resurrected their argument over whether or not he should follow the Partners' orders. Nevertheless, whether she said it or not, Will saw the revulsion in her eyes. It shamed him, to be so unworthy in Maya's estimation; with any other woman, he might have been dismissive of her opinion, but he respected Maya's integrity and intelligence too much not to give significant weight to her take on things.

If Will himself was finding the New Haven assignment difficult to complete, in spite of his commitment to Hometown and its ideals, what, he asked himself, must Maya have been experiencing as she was forced to sit idly by while this great injustice was carried out right in front of her?

And as if that weren't enough, Will reflected sourly (enjoying, despite his dark thoughts, the opportunity to study Maya's beauty without interruption while she slept), another demon had to appear on her doorstep, in the form of her junkie brother.

Will had not been totally up-front with Maya about Joseph's reaction to the news of Jericho's prison break. Actually, Joseph had intimated that if the brother became too much of a problem – if his escape attracted too much attention from the press or the authorities – Maya might no longer be a viable asset for Will on this mission. Reading between the lines, Will understood that Maya's very life was in danger here: She was in too deeply to simply be cut loose, yet she couldn't be tied to Will in even the most peripheral way if her life was about to come under the microscope. The only solution, Will had decided while listening to Joseph, was for Jericho Sanders to disappear permanently – and fast.

Joseph had assured him (though Will had wisely not asked for such assurances, not wanting to betray the fact that he cared one way or the other what happened to Maya) that he would try to arrange things so that Maya's role in the operation would not be affected. He didn't was, Joseph had said, to "derail the efficiency" of Will's assignment, which had been up to that point progressing remarkably well so far as the Partners were concerned. Will fully intended to make an impassioned case for Maya's continued involvement if Joseph made any more concrete allusions to "terminating" her; as the primary operative, Will knew that he would be given a considerable amount of deference when it came to deciding how the mission proceeded logistically, since he was the one in the trenches on a daily basis and thereby best-placed to determine how the operation should be carried off.

And if he couldn't persuade Joseph? Well, Will was determined not to let it come to that point, anyway. Maya had demons in her past, to be sure, but she was Will's angel – Madame Morphea had certainly hit the jackpot on that score – and he would not let her fall into the devil's clutches.

_So what am I in Maya's life – her angel or another one of her demons?_

Will shook off those thoughts. He reminded himself that if he refused to accept defeat, he could secure his success: Jericho Sanders would not interfere with Will's future with Maya, because Will simply would not allow that to happen; Will would forge a happy-ever-after for them, because he simply would not allow himself to fail on this mission.

As if on cue, the cell phone in Will's backpack began to ring. Grabbing it before the noise could disturb Maya, Will whispered into the receiver, "Hello?"

"Will?" Joseph sounded puzzled. "Why are you whispering?"

"Just a sec."

Will eased off the bed – Maya never moved, she was so deeply asleep – and hurried into the bathroom, closing the door softly behind him. Speaking normally, he said, "Sorry, the girl's asleep and I didn't want to wake her. What's the news?"

"Pretty good," Joseph replied cheerfully, sending a wave of relief washing over Will. He plopped down on the edge of the tub to listen. "I was able to arrange for one of our assets in the Augusta FBI field office to take point on the prison escape. He's seeing to it that the press are not informed of Sanders' family ties to Deer Harbor.

"We've also arranged for the press coverage to be kept to a minimum, period," Joseph continued. "The only thing that's been reported so far is that there was a disturbance at the minimum security facility near Augusta. Now, I'm sure the residents of Deer Harbor are going to catch wind of this sooner or later – Maine isn't that big of a state, after all – but we're hoping to have the situation cleaned up before that happens. Then we can control the girl's exposure, make sure this blows over quickly without bringing too bright of a spotlight onto her."

_Or, more to the point, onto her involvement with Hometown, _Will understood Joseph to be saying.

The news was good – not perfect, but good. With an FBI agent in their pockets, Hometown could both control the flow of information and ensure that Maya was not heckled by the authorities. "So right now, things are staying the same where the girl is concerned?" Will prompted, careful to sound as if he cared only about protecting the mission. As always, Joseph might have been calling him by his current alias, but he expected to be speaking to Daniel Taft – and Daniel Taft wouldn't have given a damn whether Maya went to prison right along with her brother so long as the New Haven operation wasn't affected.

"For the moment, yes," Joseph confirmed. "Hopefully it won't come to this, because our FBI asset has taken care of coordinating the law enforcement response, but at some point it may become necessary for the girl to speak to the authorities. You may want to prep her on what to say if that does happen."

"No problem," Will responded readily, before moving on to the most pressing question of the day. "And Sanders? What are we doing about the guy himself?"

"So far he hasn't popped up on or over the Canadian border," Joseph replied, sounding grim.

Will knew that was not such good news. For Maya to truly be safe, Jericho needed to be neutralized as a threat, either by being carted back off to prison or…

Well, the other option was obvious.

"Listen, Will," Joseph's voice took on an apologetic note. "I realize this is a distraction you don't need right now, and if you'd prefer, we can simply cut our losses and find you a new asset. But I spoke to Director Freed last night, and he thinks if we can find a way to continue on as we have been, we should. The Partners are very pleased with your work so far, I thought you should know that. But before I make my recommendation to them, I wanted to know two things from you.

"The first is: How much effort do you think we should be putting into maintaining the girl as your asset?"

_You touch one hair on her head, Joseph, and I'll kill the whole lot of you._

Smoothing the instantaneous fury out of his voice, Will answered coolly, "The girl has been pivotal in the operation's success so far, in my opinion. She's given me a tremendous perspective on life in this place, and she's proven to be completely trustworthy. She and I work well together," he added, wanting to emphasize that without Maya, the Partners wouldn't have so many successes to celebrate about this assignment, yet at the same time taking care not to suggest that he was personally invested in her safety. "I can do this with another asset if I have to, obviously, but if at all possible, I'd like to maintain the status quo."

"That was the impression I'd gotten from your reports, but I wanted to be sure." Joseph's casual response reassured Will that he had achieved the necessary balance between arguing for Maya's continued involvement and seeming unconcerned for her well-being in general; had his reply set off warning bells for his handler, Will knew Joseph would have pressed the issue. This operation was too important for him to ignore a complication like an operative falling for an asset.

"The other thing I wanted to know," Joseph continued, "is how likely you think it is that Sanders ever headed for Canada in the first place."

_Not very, knowing this piece of shit._

From the moment Maya had told him about Jericho's escape the previous evening, Will's spy-instincts had warned him that Jericho Sanders would not run off alone and unaided into the unknown – he was too selfish and cowardly for that. Spending a year amongst crackheads and heroine addicts had taught Will that selflessness and compassion were not in their vocabularies. Just because Jericho had not been able to persuade Maya to help him on his first attempt did not mean that he wouldn't try again; in all likelihood, Will suspected, the fugitive was hanging around somewhere near Deer Harbor, waiting for another crack at his sister's better nature, or at least for an opportunity to rob her blind of what little she had left.

Will didn't actually give a damn what happened to Jericho Sanders, only in as much as his fate concerned Maya's. If Hometown caught up to him and blew his junkie head off, well, Will would dry Maya's tears and privately bid the worthless bastard good riddance. If he made it to Canada and never surfaced again, Will would accept that outcome, too, though he couldn't see it coming to fruition. In either event, however, Maya's survival depended on Hometown knowing Jericho's status (dead and buried or alive and sufficiently hidden). Therefore Will answered Joseph honestly, "I'm almost positive he's still around here somewhere. I have a feeling he'll poke his head up before long."

"I don't have to tell you, Will, that that could cause a problem for you continuing to work with the girl."

"I understand." Will chose his next words carefully. "Do I have authorization to secure the situation if the opportunity presents itself?"

Joseph chuckled. "I had a feeling you'd ask me that. Director Freed gave the green light for you to do whatever you deem necessary to protect the integrity of your mission. But remember," Joseph cautioned, "your primary focus is New Haven. Don't let this complication distract you, Will. You're doing too well."

From his foothold inside Will's consciousness, Daniel Taft cheered over the clear implication that a place in the inner circle was already waiting for him at the end of this operation.

_Just a little longer, _Daniel lectured Will. _Hang in there a while longer, see this thing through even though it sucks, and you're set for life._

Will promised Joseph that he would not take any extraordinary measures nor allow himself to be sidetracked from his primary goal in order to remove Jericho Sanders as a threat. Even as he said it, though, Will knew it would never become an issue: He had two days left in Deer Harbor, and if he understood anything about drug addicts, it was that they were not the patient sort. Jericho would make an appearance again, and soon.

Only this time, he wouldn't be dealing with his frightened sister. He would be facing a highly-trained and deadly operative, Will intended to see to that.

By the time he bid Joseph good-bye after innocently inquiring after Sela, Sam and Darian (whenever he spoke to his handler, Will always tried to feel out if Darian's secret was still safe, and so far it had seemed to be if Joseph's normal "family man" reaction was a reliable indicator), the sun had risen and the clock was ticking toward six-thirty. Much as he hated to wake her, Will knew he and Maya had to head back to Deer Harbor; the stack of video footage and other materials in Will's suitcase still needed to be sorted through and carefully edited, despite the current disaster.

Maya had thrown off the covers while Will was in the bathroom talking to Joseph. He did a double-take when he saw that she was wearing nothing besides his Yale tee-shirt, which normally fell to her knees but which had in her sleep become twisted up to her navel, and a silky pair of red panties that left even less to the imagination than her little black bikini.

_How the hell did I sleep next to that all night without attacking her?_

Will decided it was for the best that he had fallen asleep before Maya emerged from her bath, or otherwise his dreams would have been of a very different sort – and his carefully-cultivated self-control might not have stood up to the challenge of staying on his side of the bed with a half-naked Maya lying beside him.

Reminding himself that today of all days was not the time to throw caution to the wind where his relationship with Maya was concerned, Will knelt beside the bed and shook her shoulder gently.

"Maya," he said softly, loving how her long eyelashes rested on her high cheekbones when her eyes were closed. "Maya, hey. Hey, it's time to wake up."

Sleepily, Maya blinked at him. Will's heart fluttered, an overwhelming sense of tenderness enveloping him as he watched her slowly swim up from the depths of dreamland to greet a new day.

"Will." She smiled around his name. "Your hair's all messed up."

Without a hint of self-consciousness – Will Traveler couldn't have cared less what his hair looked like – Will made a half-hearted attempt to comb his sandy locks into place with his fingers. "You, on the other hand," he replied, returning her smile, "look absolutely perfect."

"I'll bet," Maya answered sarcastically.

She did, though. Will didn't understand how Maya could not realize what a knock-out she was. He rather liked that about her, though; girls like Kim Doherty who knew they were gorgeous and carried that knowledge with ease were attractive in a certain way, no doubt, yet Will was more partial to girls like Maya who seemed oblivious to the effect their beauty had on men. Or, in Maya's case, oblivious to the fact that they were beautiful at all.

"C'mon, we've gotta get moving," Will told her, standing and crossing to his side of the bed. He pulled a clean pair of jeans and a long-sleeved black tee-shirt out of his bag. "You want first shower?"

Thirty minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Lincoln had checked out of their hotel and departed Caseyville in the direction of Deer Harbor. Will thought it a testament to how much he loved Maya, to how determined he was to make a future for them together, that they had not consummated their fictitious "marriage." Heaven knew he had wanted to at several points during the evening and that morning, but he had restrained himself with the knowledge that following the rules for now could mean the difference between a happy life together and a life spent on the run from his employers.

They rode in companionable silence back to Maya's house, Will behind the wheel and Maya staring out the window at the red-and-gold leaves floating to the muddy ground on the cool autumn breeze. Will knew she was worried about her brother. Just because she hadn't wanted to be told what Will's employers planned to do with Jericho if he returned didn't mean she didn't care; Will was acutely aware of this, especially as a plan for removing Jericho Sanders as a threat to his mission and to his Maya began to form in Will's mind.

Since it was a Saturday, Maya normally would have been headed to the shop by the time Will drove her Jeep up the driveway. But they needed to lay low for a couple of days, Will had decided, so Maya had phoned Margot from the hotel to ask if she could check the store that day, claiming a bad case of the flu would prevent her from opening. Will had suggested this ruse for two reasons: One, if Jericho was hiding out in "Have Books, Will Travel" (unlikely, yet possible), Margot would certainly not hesitate to report him to the authorities, and then the problem of Jericho's whereabouts would be solved; two, Maya's "flu" would give her an excuse not to leave the house for a few days without people wondering why her store remained closed.

When Maya unlocked her back door around eight, Will saw her pause on the threshold, her entire body attuned for the slightest rustle or creak, anything to indicate that the house wasn't empty. He waited patiently behind her until she turned and confessed sheepishly, "I was sort of afraid he'd be here."

Privately seething with rage at the turmoil her brother was putting her through, Will answered evenly, "That's a perfectly valid concern, Maya. But I told you," he lied through his teeth, determined to eradicate the fear from her eyes, "Jericho will be halfway to Toronto by now. He's not an idiot."

Maya offered him a shaky smile. Her determination to be brave while her world crashed around her made Will want to gather her into his arms and steal her away somewhere that no one could ever hurt her again, where nothing sad or unpleasant could ever touch her life.

Instead, he got to work.

Will spent the morning sorting out which of his chemical engineering papers would be most damning when copied over into Jay's handwriting by Hometown's skilled graphologists. He tried to block from his mind the memory of how truly grief-stricken he had been when he saw Jay dead in his dream. Joseph had been right – framing innocent people, especially people who had shown Will honest affection, was harder than it had sounded when he had asked for the assignment.

_But I'm not going to kill them. I'm just…_

_Just ruining their lives so I have my own happy ending._

The demon in their midst, that's what Will was to Jay and Tyler. The silver-tongued devil leading them straight to hell.

A crisis of conscience was a luxury Will couldn't afford at the moment, however. So while Maya puttered around in the kitchen baking an apple pie, he focused on producing results for the New Haven op that would have the Partners rubbing their grubby palms together in greedy pleasure.

Yet Will's thoughts were not, as he had promised Joseph they would be, totally devoted to his current mission. Splicing together a six-minute episode of Tyler bemoaning the deplorable state of government welfare programs into a two-minute diatribe that made the billionaire's son sound frighteningly fanatical in his views on Congress "abandoning the poor," Will simultaneously mulled over the options for dealing with Maya's brother.

The most straight-forward solution would be to kill him. Will liked predictability: If Jericho was dead, he couldn't cause more trouble. Besides, even if the authorities managed to recapture Jericho, Will still saw him as a potential threat to Maya. For one thing, the press would surely pounce on the dramatic tale of an escaped inmate being tracked down through the wintery northern woods, regardless of how Hometown tried to control the flow of information about the prison break; knowing how nervous the Partners got over any type of exposure, he feared they might decide to do away with Maya just to be on the safe side if Jericho's return to prison received too much news coverage.

For another, so long as he was alive Jericho would keep popping up in Maya's life. Will doubted the other man would manage a second escape; he would be shipped off to a super-max prison now, no more rinky-dink minimum security facilities, and guarded much more closely. Nevertheless, someday he would be released – probably not in the next decade, although the guard he had stabbed looked likely to survive, but someday – and then Maya would have to deal with him all over again.

Will assumed that Maya loved her brother, because Maya was a good, forgiving person. He didn't want to cause her further pain by ripping yet another person she loved out of her life; he didn't want to be connected in her mind with even more sorrow and suffering than he already was, either. None of that, though, swayed Will from his conviction that Maya would ultimately be safer and happier once her brother was permanently removed from the picture.

So Will would kill Jericho Sanders, then, and be done with it. The question was, how to carry off the assassination so that the Partners were pleased with the outcome (meaning the sanctity and secrecy of Hometown were absolutely protected) and so that Maya never learned of Will's involvement in her brother's death?

It took Will most of the day to work it out. He mentally rifled through dozens of scenarios, some fantastic and some plausible, but he finally hit on the solution thanks to a rather mundane event.

His compilation of "evidence" against Jay and Tyler finished for another six weeks, around five o'clock, as Maya prepared to put a delicious-smelling dinner of pumpkin soup and homemade potato bread on the table, Will carted the materials down to her basement. There he filed them away in the fire-proof boxes where they would be stored until he had time to take them to Joseph in New York, probably over Yale's month-long winter break. Turning to head back upstairs, Will banged his shin hard against the corner of the lowest shelf beneath the stairs.

Will winced. Almost immediately, he felt a warm trickle of blood slide down his leg; lifting the cuff of his jeans, he saw that the shelf's sharp, splintery edge had cut a gash across his shin-bone, slicing through a long, thin scar that already ran vertically from his knee to his ankle on that leg.

Fifteen stitches, Will recalled with a grimace, slipping off his sock and using it to staunch the flow of blood. He had put fifteen stitches into that leg after falling (like a klutz) onto an old rusted piece of metal out by Maya's lake back in July. And then he had, later that same night after Maya went to bed, sewn seven stitches back in where the fight with the Pruitt brothers had torn them open –

Andrew Pruitt. Of course.

Will's amazing brain spiraled through a rapid-fire series of connections, which came together in such a neat, elegant web that Will couldn't believe he hadn't seen what was right in front of his eyes this entire time. Andrew Pruitt had been arrested less than two weeks after Jericho and Maya; he had blamed Maya for turning state's evidence on him because she had been released without charges, but obviously, Will knew she hadn't told the cops anything. Jericho, on the other hand, had ended up with a six-year sentence to a minimum security facility, with the possibility of early release for good behavior in as little as two years, despite being charged with a rather serious felony (possession with intent to distribute). Practically a slap on the wrist for a twenty-five-year-old with four previous drug-related convictions, plus a rap sheet of offenses like assault and DUI that he had begun accruing at the tender age of sixteen.

Jericho, not Maya, had directed the police to his good buddy Pruitt's meth lab in exchange for a reduced sentence to a minimum, not a maximum, security prison.

Will forgot about the pain in his leg as a plot formed in his mind. Andy Pruitt had made no secret of the fact that he intended to take revenge on whoever had been responsible for sending him to jail. Everyone in this little town knew how crazy and violent the Pruitts were; they knew they made good on their threats whenever possible. If Andy Pruitt were to figure out that Jericho had ratted him out (which the state police could confirm that he had, if anyone questioned the theory), and if he were to find out that Jericho was hiding in the woods near Deer Harbor following a prison break, well, no one would be surprised if Pruitt killed him.

And Will had leverage over Andy Pruitt, seeing as how the ignorant hick believed Will worked for the Fernandez-Suarez drug cartel. If Will were to corner Pruitt and recruit him to help take out Jericho, and if in the heat of battle Pruitt were to be shot and killed right along with the other man, then nobody would ever need to be the wiser that Will had played a hand in the double-murder at all. It would simply be two good-for-nothing, small-time hoods blowing one another away over a criminal allegiance gone south.

Nothing to create a fuss over. Nothing to devote more than a bit of local press to (and no one the Partners cared about read the Deer Harbor _Times-Commoner_). Nothing for the authorities to investigate very thoroughly (and anyway, Will had the FBI on his side).

Will experienced a rush of cagey excitement that told him this plan would work. Jericho would no longer be a problem for Maya. Pruitt would shoulder the blame for the murder and thereby mask Hometown's involvement, since he wouldn't be around to bring up Will's name. Everyone would be satisfied.

Everyone being the Partners, in this instance.

Maya, of course, would mourn for her brother. Knowing that nearly caused Will to chuck the plan. He slowly climbed the steps, thinking it over, turning the scheme every which way in his mind to determine if it was, after all, the best option.

Maya did not hear Will step into the kitchen doorway. Nor did she realize that he was watching her set the table, humming and smiling to herself as she anticipated how much he would enjoy the meal she had prepared. In that moment, Will knew the truth.

He loved her.

God, he loved her more than he had ever thought it possible to love anything, Will realized, the force of his emotions nearly doubling him over. Could he really take away someone Maya loved, knowing how badly it would hurt her? Could he be responsible for another tragedy in her life?

_She's strong. She'll recover. And she'll be safer this way, I know she will._

In truth, Will wondered if Maya might even secretly be relieved (after the initial grief wore away, that was) that her brother would never trouble her again. He had seen the conflict in her eyes the night before when she had hesitated before deciding that she did not really want to know what Will's employers could do to her brother. Regardless of how much she loved Jericho, Will understood – and sympathized with – what in all likelihood was Maya's private wish that her brother would simply leave her alone, for good.

Will could make that happen. This problem he could solve for her.

If he could carry off his plan as intended, Will thought, Maya would probably even be able to accept the manner of Jericho's death as the inevitable consequence of the life her brother had chosen. And that, Will recognized, would go a long way in helping her put the loss of her last remaining family member behind her, because Maya was remarkably resilient in the face of cold, harsh reality.

She looked up then to find him watching her from the doorway. Will wondered if his feelings for her were written all over his face – she had caught him in a rare unguarded moment.

_Me, too, _Maya seemed to wordlessly convey with her lovely, pale-grey eyes. _It's the same for me, too, having you here – wonderful and painful at the same time._

"Smells good," Will said lightly, walking over to the table while inhaling the rich, aromatic scents rising from the hot dishes. "I do miss your cooking."

Maya grinned at the reminder of the game they had played on Will's last evening in Deer Harbor before the official start of the New Haven op. "And I do miss cooking for you," she replied, settling into her chair. "But right now I'm starving, so you'd better eat fast or there may not be anything left for seconds."

They shared a pleasant, relaxed meal, Will, as Alex had taught him, compartmentalizing the awful thing he meant to do in a few hours' time so that he could laugh and joke and flirt with Maya. She filled him in on the gossip around town (apparently, the mayor had been caught in bed with the county clerk, a woman half his age at that) and he regaled her with stories of his adventures at Yale, most involving Jay and Tyler. Like him, Maya seemed to be becoming proficient at separating their lives into two halves: Despite the fact that they both knew Will was going to eventually betray his roommates, Maya pretended right along with him that they were really his best friends, and she honestly seemed to like hearing about them and about Will's life at school.

She was his angel, Will thought again later, drying the last of the dishes and putting them away in the cabinets. His sweet, beautiful angel. He wouldn't let anyone, including her brother, take her away from him.

His mind made up, Will set his plan into motion immediately following dinner. First, while Maya called Margot to ask if she could open the store in the morning long enough to receive a shipment of new books that were due to be delivered, Will slipped into her parents' bedroom (upstairs, at the far end of the hall) and lifted a Colt .45 revolver from Thomas Sanders' nightstand. Over the summer, Will had explored the house while Maya was at work – okay, so he had snooped, but he'd needed to know all he could about her since they were working together. Poking about in Thomas and Lorelei's bedroom (which did not appear to have changed since the day Thomas died – even an empty IV pump, no doubt used to administer pain medicine in Thomas' last days, still stood beside the bed), Will had discovered the gun and decided straightaway that he and Maya's father would have gotten along famously: Any man who believed in shooting to kill where his family's safety was concerned earned Will's respect.

Now, Will tucked the gun into his backpack and proceeded to his own room, where he retrieved the .9 millimeter and combat knife he had hidden on the top shelf of the closet. Will believed in preparing for the worst in every situation; having a weapon at hand made him sleep easier at night.

His excuse for stepping out that evening was perfectly plausible: He told Maya, when he joined her in the living room after her phone call to Margot, that he needed to meet with his handler. The fact that his excuse was a bold-faced lie did not make it any less credible.

"Is something wrong? Has something happened?" Maya automatically asked, an all-too-familiar anxiety returning to her expression, drawing her mouth into a taut line.

Will resisted the urge to kiss her until her lips softened into a smile. "Everything's fine," he assured her, donning his black trench coat and picking her car keys up off the counter. Mindful that the most convincing lies contained some truth, he continued, "My handler wants me to prep you in case the police come by with questions – which I don't think they will, but just in case. We're going to go over what you need to say, that's all. We're just more comfortable not having this kind of conversation over the phone."

Maya accepted that. Seeing Will to the back door, she hugged him goodbye; they both held on a bit longer than was strictly necessary, attraction crackling between them despite everything that was happening.

"Do you want me to wait up?" she whispered in his ear.

"No," Will said back, drinking in her delicious, soapy scent. "I may be late, and you need to rest."

"Okay." Maya stepped back and tucked her hair behind her ears, regarding him with such a trusting smile that Will almost confessed his true intentions right then and there. "Be careful, Will."

He promised that he would be. Reminding himself that what he was about to do was for Maya's own good, he was soon in her Jeep and on his way into the night.

Will drove deserted back roads to Ray's, the hole-in-the-wall beer joint Margot had mentioned Pruitt frequenting when Will had met her for the first time that summer. Given that it was a Saturday night, Will hedged his bets that a redneck like Pruitt would be at the honky-tonk throwing darts and slapping back shots of Wild Turkey. He parked a fair distance from the bar (more of a pole-barn, really, wired with a stereo system and rigged with neon lights and surrounded by a gravel lot) down a dead-end utility access road; sneaking up to the back of the building, he peered through the grime-encrusted window and spotted his target shooting pool with a group of greasy-looking youths. He did not see anyone who appeared to be a Pruitt brother or cousin, to his relief – Will wanted Pruitt to himself for this assignment, though he was willing to take out a few more family members if need be.

Will settled down on an overturned ten-gallon bucket to wait for Pruitt to emerge. He could be infinitely patient while on a mission; he could ignore cold, hunger, rain, any sort of discomfort. Being an assassin had taught him to endure physical hardship while staking out a mark.

Around midnight, Pruitt at last stumbled from the front door and made for an enormous black Chevrolet Silverado pick-up at the edge of the parking lot. Will debated the best way to approach Pruitt without attracting attention to himself. For his plan to work, no one could see them together; everyone had to believe Pruitt had acted alone.

Ultimately, Will decided not to make his move at Ray's. Instead, while Pruitt bid good night to his friends, Will crawled into the truck bed and covered up with a tarp Pruitt had draped over a short stack of firewood. Now, if his prey would just head out of the parking lot alone, Will's night would be a lot easier…

For once, Will's luck held: Pruitt climbed unaccompanied behind the wheel and peeled out down the lonely back roads toward his family's "compound," as Maya had referred to the Pruitts' spread.

After two miles, Will raised up and tapped the back glass with the muzzle of his .9 millimeter. Yelping in fear and surprise, Pruitt nearly drove them straight into a ditch; somehow, he managed to recover and steer the truck safely off to the side of the road.

Will's feet hit the ground the instant they came to a stop. Jerking open the passenger's side door, he trained the gun on Pruitt's forehead as he lifted himself smoothly inside. The absolute terror on the bullying coward's face stirred Will's innate cockiness. With a wicked grin, he quipped, "Hi, Andy. Not glad to see me?"

Pruitt's terrified, whiskey-hazed eyes darted frantically around the cab of the truck, seemingly in search of someplace to hide his bulk. Finding none, he settled for cowering against the door with his hands raised above his head in surrender.

"I ain't touched Maya, man, I swear to God I ain't."

"I'm aware of that, Andy," Will responded silkily, tracking the gun down toward Pruitt's midsection. The bigger man tried to shrink into himself. "If this was about Maya, you'd already have a bullet in your gut."

Pruitt paled. "So whatta you want?" He didn't sound challenging, just scared.

"Actually, I'm here to see if you'd like some work." Will let this sink into Pruitt's thick, alcohol-fogged brain for a moment. "Oh, by the way, I found out something interesting about your arrest, Andy. It seems you were right about someone giving up you and your little meth-making operation to the cops. You just got the wrong member of the Sanders family when you accused Maya."

A spark of fury ignited behind the fear in Pruitt's eyes. Will smirked to see it; hooking this idiot was almost too easy.

Regarding Will warily, Pruitt demanded, "Why bother tellin' me that? I thought they was under your boss's protection."

"Maya is. Her brother…"

Will shrugged, as if to say, _Hasn't Jericho always been a bad apple?_

"Her brother is a different story," Will went on. "Doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut – obviously, since he sent you away. And now he's gone and busted himself out of prison," Will went in for the kill, seeing the desire for revenge firing up full-force inside of Pruitt. "That poses a problem for my employers. And I'm a problem-solver, Andy. D'ya know what I mean?"

Pruitt nodded. He still looked frightened of Will, yet he also appeared to be slowly catching on to the possibility that, for the present, Will wasn't his enemy.

_Sucker._

"You need any help solvin' this here problem?" Pruitt offered, his piggy little eyes gleaming malevolently.

Here it came, Will thought, the big finish: The fish was on the hook, waiting to be reeled in. Pruitt was walking eagerly into the trap Will had lain, never for one second suspecting the danger he was in.

_Ready – set – go…_

"I thought you might like a piece of the action, yeah," Will responded evenly, returning Pruitt's malicious grin. Just in case Pruitt wasn't as stupid as he looked and might question why the man who had beaten the living daylights out of him a few months ago would now be coming to him for help, Will clarified for good measure, "Sort of a good-faith gesture, you know? You see, Andy, my employers, they're always looking to expand their business opportunities into new areas. So you might even look at this evening as a job interview."

Like Austin, the Miami-based gangster wannabe Will had found so laughably easy to manipulate, Pruitt's response to the prospect of increasing his stature in the criminal community was virtually Pavlovian. "Let's do this, bro," he cheered, slapping his hands against the steering wheel. "Where is the little son of a bitch?"

_I'm going to enjoy killing you, you ignorant sack of shit, you really have no idea…_

Will directed Pruitt back toward Maya's house. He was following a hunch regarding Jericho's next move; as they so often did, Will's instincts proved to be dead-on.

He instructed Pruitt to park a quarter-mile from the house. They crept through the chilly night to the shed near Maya's lake, from which the shaky beam of a flashlight could be seen through the small, dirty windows. Will shook his head, amazed by people's predictability. He had known the motorcycle – the one he had restored over the summer – would prove too great a temptation for Jericho. Not only would it be a hell of a lot more expedient to ride rather than walk to Canada, but it was also a beautiful piece of machinery that stood to fetch a fair price once he crossed the border.

"How're we gon' do this?" Pruitt wanted to know, crouching in the thick underbrush near the lake, inches from Will.

"We grab him, quick and quiet, and get him back to your truck," Will replied. His fingers closed around the hilt of the combat knife secreted in the waistband of his jeans; if Pruitt messed with the plan, he was a dead man, right then and there, though Will couldn't very well fire a gun within Maya's hearing range. "Then we drive him out in the boondocks and kill him."

"Sounds good to me," Pruitt grunted.

At that moment, the door to the shed opened, and Will saw a tall, stick-thin figure wearing a ridiculously oversized raincoat steer the motorcycle out into the yard. He nodded at Pruitt – _now _– and together they leapt from the bushes onto a thoroughly unsuspecting Jericho Sanders.

Will let his weight fall directly on top of Jericho as they crashed to the ground, winding his opponent but also protecting him from the kick Pruitt aimed at their prey's face. With one blunt chop to the neck, Will knocked Jericho out cold.

He had determined to execute Maya's brother, but he did not intend for him to suffer.

"Not here," Will said to Pruitt's disappointed scowl. "We get out in the middle of nowhere, he's all yours, but not here. I'm under orders not to let the girl know what we're doing."

Invoking the specter of the Colombian drug lords he supposedly worked for achieved the effect Will had desired: Pruitt swallowed any arguments and helped him carry Jericho back to the truck, where they placed him in the bed and bound his wrists and ankles with a length of twine.

Will took Pruitt via a circuitous route back to not far from where he had hidden Maya's Jeep, just over a mile from Ray's. Pruitt didn't seem to notice where they were since they had come by such a long, winding path; besides, he was too focused on describing to Will all of the ingenious torments he wanted to inflict on their captive to notice much of anything.

"You got a gun?" Will asked, interrupting Pruitt's disgusting monologue as the truck rolled to a stop beneath a large sycamore tree.

In response, Pruitt produced a .9 millimeter from beneath his seat. "This baby oughtta do the job, hadn't she?" He fingered the gun lovingly, adding, "Once we've had our fun, of course."

Imagining Pruitt's beefy, sweaty hands squeezing Maya's slender wrists with enough force to leave finger-shaped bruises, Will smiled back cruelly. Fun? Oh yes, he planned to show Pruitt some "fun" before the night ended.

Together, they lifted Jericho's wasted form out of the truck and deposited him on the brown grass in front of the headlights. Will took a half-empty bottle of Jim Bean from Pruitt's glove compartment and splashed the amber liquid onto Jericho's face to bring him around. He almost hated to wake the man, whom he would soon have to kill, but Will needed Pruitt distracted while he took Thomas Sanders' Colt .45 from his backpack.

"Wakey, wakey," Pruitt crooned, kneeling in the dirt beside Jericho, who blinked slowly awake in a way that reminded Will forcibly of his sister. "Hello there, Jericho. Long time no see."

As he registered that his hands and feet were bound, Jericho's gaunt face paled beneath its sallow tint. "Andy," he rasped, his voice trembling. "How-how did I get here?"

If Will had entertained any lingering doubts about Jericho's role in Pruitt's arrest, they were dispelled by the terror in his hollow addict's eyes as he stared up at the bigger man. Taking a few silent steps toward the truck, Will reached in the front seat, slid his hand into his backpack and felt around until his fingers brushed cold steel.

Pruitt had just delivered a vicious kick to Jericho's side when Will came up with the gun. "You lyin', back-stabbin', cunt-sniffin' son of a whore!" Pruitt howled, drawing back his booted foot for another kick, oblivious to Will circling around Jericho, who was desperately trying to curl in on himself for some protection against his attacker. "I'm gonna stomp you to death, you stupid shit – "

Will cleared his throat. Pruitt stopped with his foot in mid-air, his ugly face caught in a furious sneer until he noticed the revolver aimed at his stomach.

"What the – " he started.

The single, perfectly-placed shot obliterated his words. Jericho screamed and began frantically slithering off into the tall weeds as Pruitt stumbled backwards into the grill of his truck, clutching at a quarter-sized hole above his belly button.

Will pointed the gun at Jericho, who stilled instantly. "Don't move," he warned. Jericho nodded hastily to show he would comply.

Pruitt was gasping and groaning, trying to drag himself along the front bumper and into the cab of his truck. Will calmly leveled the Colt again and blew out the wounded man's kneecap.

Pruitt collapsed in a screaming, squirming heap at the edge of the truck.

_Having fun yet, are we?_

Will squatted beside the dying man, ignoring the stench of blood and bowel, the squeals and gasps of agony. Grabbing a fistful of Pruitt's hair, he forced his victim to look up at him.

"This is for touching Maya, you worthless fuck," he informed Pruitt, whose eyes were rapidly glazing over as his life bled out onto the muddy earth. "Did you really think I'd let you off with a few broken teeth for that?"

"Go to hell," Pruitt grated out, his voice a reedy whisper.

Will patted Pruitt's cheek before letting his head drop back into the mud. "You first, my friend."

Tonight, Will felt like the devil – fittingly so, since it was, after all, Halloween.

And the devil had one more soul to collect, though this one Will did not relish.

Up to this point in his life, Will did not consider himself to have committed murder. He had taken lives, obviously. He was actually quite good at taking lives, as he was so often ordered to do by Hometown, because he knew that each act of violence was committed in service of a higher purpose – even though Will, not knowing the Partners' "master plan," couldn't attest to what that purpose was. In a way, Pruitt's death and Jericho's would also serve the Partners. But killing them felt different to Will.

Pruitt he didn't so much care about. Pruitt was less than human in Will's eyes, a would-be rapist and murder who had earned his ending. Jericho, however, was another story, not only because he was Maya's brother – someone Will knew, someone whose death he would have to experience beyond the moment of actual killing – but also because Will had personal reasons for wanting him dead. Deep down inside, Will knew he wouldn't be killing Jericho for Hometown, anymore than he had just killed Andy Pruitt for Hometown.

He was killing for himself, for his own gain.

_So this is what they've made me. All this time I've been worrying about Maya changing, I haven't even looked in the mirror to see what I've become…_

Will considered walking away right then, putting Jericho in Pruitt's truck, pressing some cash in his hand, sending him to Canada with strict instructions to never, ever come back. What was Jericho guilty of, really? Selfishness? Inconsideration? Posing a danger to his sister that he couldn't even know he posed, oblivious as he was to her involvement with Hometown?

Were any of those offenses worthy of death?

Will felt his earlier confidence in his plan wavering, in effect crumbling, as he turned to face Maya's brother. Jericho had not moved from where Will had left him crouched on the ground while he went to deal with Pruitt; he looked terrified, paralyzed by fear, which did nothing to persuade Will that killing the other man was the right move.

Tucking Pruitt's .9 millimeter into the waistband of his jeans, Will drew his combat knife as he approached the cowering fugitive. Jericho flinched away until he realized Will only meant to cut his bonds with it.

The Colt .45 Will dropped casually on the ground near Jericho, who glanced at it once before apparently deciding he didn't have a prayer against this stranger.

If it came down to it, for Maya's sake Will did not want Jericho's last moments to be horrifying. He saw no reason for her brother to even know he was in danger; he could kill him quickly, mercifully, without Jericho ever expecting the fatal blow – if he decided to go through with his plan to kill Jericho, which Will suddenly wasn't certain he could.

A little gruffly, angered by what he perceived as his own emotional weakness, Will demanded of Jericho, "You okay? He kicked you pretty good back there."

Jericho nodded, feeling along his ribs. "I-I think so." He gazed up fearfully at Will. "Listen, who are you, anyway?"

"My name's Will. I'm a friend of your sister's."

"Maya sent you to look after me?" Jericho appeared stunned by his sister's change of heart.

Will shook his head. "Not exactly. I'm a friend of hers, you see, and I want you to get the hell out of here and stop screwing around with her life. That's why I'm here – to make sure you get away. And that's why he's not beating the shit out of you right now," he added, pointing at Pruitt's lifeless body.

Jericho looked grateful but also a little perturbed that Maya had not sent someone to check on his well-being after all. Massaging his wrists where the twine had indented his skin, he offered sulkily, "That's what I was trying to do – leave, get outta her life. I just wanted my bike, man. I swear that's all."

Will studied Jericho for a long moment. He had not expected the man to look so much like Maya, right down to his soulful gray eyes; he had not expected to find anything endearing in the other man's vulnerable, steady gaze. What was it Maya had said about her mother? That she could be sweet, almost childlike, when she wasn't using? Will could see the same disposition in Jericho. It made the idea of killing him even more distasteful than it already was.

Part of Will – the part of him that thought and acted as Will Traveler, not the operative portraying him – wanted to believe that if he let Jericho go, the other man would simply disappear, that he would do right by his younger sister and never barge back into her life to make a mess of her world. If he could convince himself of that, Will thought, he would do his best to persuade the Partners of it so that Maya's brother could live.

So that he, Will, wouldn't have to shoulder the burden of yet another awful secret, this one, he feared, dark enough to destroy Maya's love for him.

Even as he toyed with the idea of setting Jericho free, however, Will knew, with a certainty of instinct he had learned over the past four years to trust, that he had no choice but to follow through with his original plan. Will had lived too long and too closely with men like Jericho, men whose addictions were only the outward manifestations of their inner darkness, to be convinced that Jericho would not one day seek out his sister again, regardless of the consequences for her.

Demons always returned.

_She'll never be safe, she'll never be free, as long as he's alive._

His mind made up, Will stood, turned his back on Jericho, and walked over to Pruitt's body, silently easing the dead man's .9 millimeter into his hand. Jericho was looking down, busying himself with the effort of getting to his feet, asking if they would be taking Pruitt's truck back to the house or heading straight for the border, when Will pointed the gun at his victim's temple.

_I'm sorry I had to do this, _Will wanted to say, but didn't.

Instead, he pulled the trigger.

Will's aim was true: Jericho was dead before he hit the ground, dead without ever seeing the gun that killed him, dead in less than a second. Yet the shot seemed to echo on and on within Will's soul; he experienced a wave of crushing doubt so powerful it nearly knocked him to his knees.

What had he just done? Had he acted out of love or selfishness? Had he protected Maya or damaged her irrevocably?

_Am I her angel or her demon?_

Will relied on his training to carry him through what came next. He shut off his confused emotions, blocked out the horror of his actions, and concentrated on arranging the scene so that it appeared Pruitt had kidnapped Jericho, brought him to this deserted spot in order to torture and kill him, but having not reckoned on Jericho carrying his father's pistol, had found himself in a firefight. The authorities would no doubt surmise that Jericho had gotten off two shots before Pruitt fired his own killing round; whatever inconsistencies turned up in the evidence – and Will tried diligently to ensure that those would be few, if any, placing Thomas' gun in Jericho's hand and Pruitt's gun back in his – the FBI agent Joseph had mentioned could take care of them.

It was done. Finished. Time to walk away.

Will did just that, cutting through the short distance through the nighttime woods to where Maya's Jeep waited. On the drive back to her house, he phoned Joseph – it was nearly one-thirty in the morning, but Will's news couldn't wait – and filled him in on what had transpired, including what their FBI asset should conclude about Pruitt and Jericho's falling out.

"Good work, Will," Joseph congratulated him, sounding truly relieved by how his operative had circumvented the potential crisis. "The Partners will be pleased this has all been wrapped up so neatly. And we shouldn't need to make any changes to your asset's status now, I wouldn't think."

Flipping his cell phone shut, Will closed his eyes, trying not to dwell on the possibility that he had just become the kind of man who would kill without hesitation, without remorse, to achieve his own selfish ends. Right or wrong, at least his plan had worked – Maya was safe.

At one time, that knowledge would have been enough – "the ends justify the means" was another one of Will's tried-and-true life philosophies. Strange, he reflected, how falling in love with a woman who refused to see things on such a simple, black-and-white level had made it impossible for him to continue to do so.

The house was dark and silent when he returned. Will crept upstairs, stowing the gun and knife back in his closet; when he looked at the empty bed, however, his mind revolted against lying down on it alone. He knew what awaited him in sleep: dreams, dreams of Jericho dying, of Maya crying, of Jay and Tyler screaming. Dreams of all the pain and suffering he had caused and was yet to cause.

So, based partially on the desire to confirm for Maya that he had been home when her brother was killed (he knew she wouldn't be able to help questioning whether or not he had been involved in Jericho's death, it was only natural given the circumstances) but mostly on the desire to be close to the woman he loved, Will decided not to sleep alone that night. He swiftly changed into the black sweatpants he wore to bed and padded barefoot down the hall to Maya's room, where he found her sleeping soundly and peacefully, blissfully ignorant of the grief that would soon envelope her.

Will eased onto the bed, drawing the covers up around them. Maya stirred when his head hit the pillow. She opened her eyes sleepily, seeming for a moment to think she must have been dreaming.

"Will?" she murmured, stretching out her fingertips to brush his cheek, apparently convincing herself that he was really there. "Is everything okay?"

"Couldn't sleep," Will answered honestly, adding, "Bad dreams."

"Come here."

Maya opened her arms and drew his head down onto her chest. Will stiffened; he knew he did not deserve to be held, to be loved, after the terrible thing he had just done. But he couldn't keep his distance from Maya, not tonight – he was too hollowed-out inside, too desperate for human contact, for _Maya. _

So he snuggled against her, for one rare moment allowing himself to be vulnerable, to admit that he needed someone else.

Maya stroked his hair, appearing to sense the sorrow in him. "It's okay, Will. Whatever it was, it was just a dream. It's okay."

_If only that were true. If only all of this had only been a dream, except for you… _

Will gently kissed the underside of Maya's jaw, wanting to comfort her, wishing he could kiss away the hurt she would endure the next day when news of Jericho's death reached her. But the attraction that always sizzled between them was still present, regardless of Will's tortured conscience; the instant his lips touched her skin, he felt a current of electricity move through him. From the way Maya sighed and shifted against him, Will knew she had felt it, too.

_You just murdered her brother. You have no right to want her or to be wanted by her…_

Will's better nature and better judgment told him to stop, told him that if he had ever needed proof that the world he currently inhabited was not a good or safe place for Maya, shooting her brother in the head in a twisted attempt to protect her from the Partners should have been more than sufficient. For once, though, Will was tired of being strong. He was tired of trying to do the "right thing," whatever that seemed to be at the moment in his morally relativistic world.

He was tired of being a spy. He wanted to be Will, just Will: Will, who loved Maya; Will, whom Maya loved.

Raising himself onto one elbow, Will gazed down into Maya's sleep-hazy eyes. He traced the outline of her lips with his fingertip, savoring the delicious anticipation of a kiss he had been thinking about, dreaming about, for months.

Ever so slowly, he lowered his lips to hers.

It was one long, sweet, lingering kiss that became a series of smaller, hungrier kisses. Maya pressed her flat palms to Will's bare skin and slid her hands down the length of his chest, curling her fingers into the waistband of his pants and urging him closer; Will slipped one hand behind her head, tilting her chin up toward him, coaxing her lips apart with his tongue. She tasted of sleep, of warmth and salt, of passion and need.

Maya made a fierce, hungry sound against his mouth when Will, completely caught up in the kiss and acting according to the dictates of desire, laid his body out over hers. Feeling her slender form molding itself to his, Will nearly lost all self-control right then. Had she been anyone but Maya, the woman he loved more than life itself, he would have given himself over totally to passion.

But, Will told himself, struggling to think clearly, they were not any other couple, free to go wherever their desires carried them. They were still under the Partners' sway, and Will knew he could not afford to forget that entirely if he wanted them both to stay alive.

_You've waited this long. You can wait some more._

Sealing Maya's lips in a final, almost bruising kiss, Will tried to memorize the silky-softness of her mouth. Such memories, he knew, would be all he had to carry him through what the new dawn would bring.

Everything he had done since the end of July, Will understood, had been for Maya. He did not expect her to approve of those actions; he hoped against hope she would never learn about most of the things he had done, for Hometown and for them. But what was done was done; regret and remorse did not change the fact that the only way out for either of them was for Will to keep moving them forward. To do so effectively, he needed to remember _why_ he was doing these horrible things – and the memory of his first kiss with Maya, Will knew, would be the best reminder he could ever have.

Maya smiled up at him as he leaned back. Cat-like, she stretched, giving Will a thoroughly scintillating view of her long, bare legs.

"I've been wanting you to do that forever, you know," she fairly purred.

"Yeah?" Will, still a little breathless from their kiss, pushed his guilt aside to enjoy the moment. "Well, I could be persuaded to do it again sometime, I think."

Giggling, Maya challenged, "You think?"

"Okay, okay." Will grinned, some of the heaviness lifting from his soul, even as he knew he was a heartless bastard for allowing himself to be happy after what he had done that night. "I could be persuaded to do that all the time."

"That's more like it. But for now, come to bed."

Maya opened her arms to him again, and Will gratefully sank into them, closing his eyes and reveling in her warmth and softness. He tucked his nose into the side of her neck, shifting so that their bodies were molded together, close as second skin. He wished they could do more than hold one another, of course; he longed to kiss her, touch her, taste her, move inside of her. But for tonight, it was enough for Will to simply to lie in Maya's arms, where he could, for at least a little while, hide from his own demons.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11:**

"**Ashes to Ashes"**

The aftermath of death had always puzzled Maya. Just when it seemed the world should have been slowing down, grinding to a halt as the universe recognized that a life – a _life _– had ended, everything picked up speed, hurtling forward like a locomotive racing down a nighttime rail.

So it had been after her mother's death. And her father's. And now, her brother's.

Maya and Will woke to the news early Sunday morning, when Sheriff Barker and Special Agent in Charge Harland McCormick of the FBI knocked on the front door. Maya read the truth in the sheriff's brown eyes even before anyone spoke: Jericho was dead.

Wordlessly, she turned into Will's arms and cried until she had no tears left.

In control of herself again, Maya fixed them all coffee and sat on the couch with Will's arm draped around her shoulders. McCormick, whom Maya correctly assumed to be the FBI agent Will's handler had referred to, gently relayed how her brother had been killed by Andrew Pruitt. This at first made no sense to Maya, until Sheriff Barker explained that, when Jericho had been arrested three years ago, it had been he, not Maya, who had given evidence against Pruitt; the sheriff knew this well, because he had been in the room during Jericho's confession. McCormick broke in then to provide the FBI's theory that one of Pruitt's inmate friends from Augusta had phoned him Saturday morning with the hot tip that not only had Jericho escaped from prison but that he was also the man responsible for Pruitt's own stint behind bars.

The double-murder had begun, McCormick went on to say, when Pruitt had apparently discovered Jericho in Maya's backyard, where he had been attempting to steal his old motorcycle from their shed. Maya felt sick to her stomach when she realized how close her brother had been to safety, literally yards from their back door, when Pruitt had pounced. If she hadn't fallen asleep, if she had waited up for Will, would she have heard the scuffle? Could she have intervened, saved Jericho's life?

_If only Will had been here, he would have heard something – and he would have…_

Well, actually, Maya wasn't certain what Will would have done in that situation. Perhaps, she decided, it was better she would never know whether or not Will had received orders to shoot her brother on sight – and, more to the point, if he would have carried out those orders, just like all of his others.

McCormick, a dapper little gray-haired man who looked quite cosmopolitan in a sharp black suit (especially when compared to the burly, bearded Sheriff Barker in his polyester uniform), treated Maya so kindly that by the end of their interview, she was convinced he could not know what Will's employers really did. He assured her over and over again that Jericho had not suffered, that the end had been quick; he repeated a half-dozen times that Maya had done the right thing by not offering to hide her brother or to facilitate his escape, because sooner or later, the law would have caught up to both of them. She had her own future to think of, the older man insisted, reminding Maya very much of her father in that moment. She couldn't blame herself for what had happened; her brother had made his own choices, and they had not been very good ones, though he didn't wish to speak ill of the dead.

McCormick was a good man, Maya thought, not the sort to knowingly work for the bad guys. Although, Will was a good man, too, and wasn't that what he did?

Sensing that Maya was far from thinking clearly, Will (whom she remembered to call Daniel in front of their visitors) inquired after important details like when the body would be released and what was being told to the press. Both the sheriff and McCormick were confident that Maya could bury her brother as soon as Tuesday, if she so wished, and McCormick insisted (with a rather sly wink in Will's direction, Maya noted) that the news coverage would be minimal, if his office had anything to say about it.

Forty-five minutes after their arrival, the officers were ready to leave. Maya could hardly believe that this was it, that they had merely shown up to deliver their tragic message and were now leaving her to sort out the aftermath. She knew it was silly of her, but she felt slighted somehow, as if they should have been doing more to help her. She hadn't even said very much, she realized, though she immediately wondered if Will had engineered the meeting that way, since he hadn't had time to "prep" her for speaking with the authorities.

"Sorry about all this, Maya," Sheriff Barker said to her, as Maya and Will walked their somber guests to the door.

It suddenly struck Maya that the sheriff had known her and Jericho from the time they were born. He had been fair to her during her arrest, Maya recalled, telling the state police in no uncertain terms that Maya Sanders was not a criminal and placing her in a private holding cell away from the regular inmate population while she awaited arraignment. He had even been fair to Jericho, in spite all of the trouble he had caused before being sent off to Augusta three years ago.

The sheriff went on, "I want you to know I've had a talk with Old Man Pruitt, and he understands that his boy and Jericho had a beef between them, one that you're not to be involved in. I don't think you should have any trouble, but if you do, especially once your boyfriend here leaves," he glanced at Will, "I want you to call me, okay?"

"He's not my boyfriend," Maya blurted out.

Her cheeks instantly reddened. The only thing she could think of was that McCormick might report back to Will's employers that they were involved; she had wanted to set the record straight. Instead, she suspected she had just as good as announced to the world her feelings for Will in that too-quick, me-thinks-she-doth-protest-too-much denial.

Will recovered admirably. "I know Maya from the bookstore business," he explained evenly to the sheriff. "She's helping me figure out how to start my own shop."

Sheriff Barker apparently chalked Maya's odd outburst up to grief, though Maya noted with some trepidation that McCormick continued to regard her and Will curiously. She avoided the FBI agent's eyes. She hoped he would prove to be as kind as he seemed and not run straight back to Will's employers to raise any warning flags about their relationship.

"Well, in any event, once you're out here by yourself again there might be some trouble," the sheriff persisted. "So you let us know if you see or hear anything suspicious, here at your house or at the store, and I'll send somebody out straightaway, all right?"

Maya promised that she would alert the sheriff if she had any problems whatsoever. Truthfully, she wasn't worried about the Pruitts. She knew Will had put the fear of God into Andy and his brothers by claiming she was under the protection of a Colombian drug cartel; she doubted any of the Pruitt clan would have the guts to come after her simply to seek revenge.

As it would turn out, in fact, Maya would never hear a single peep from the Pruitt family again. Actually, without Andy around to stir up trouble, some of the younger boys would actually turn out fairly decent, managing to hold down regular jobs and even to graduate from high school.

Alone again with Will, Maya immediately apologized, "I am so sorry about that, about saying that to the sheriff…"

Will placed one hand on either side of her face and tilted her chin up toward him. "Don't," he ordered softly, resting his forehead against hers, dropping a light kiss on the end of her nose, which made Maya smile in spite of herself. "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it."

And Will did take care of just about everything over the next two days, because Maya was in no condition to. Sometimes, she felt sure and steady; she could talk and think and interact normally, almost as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Other times – and these usually crept up on her unexpectedly – she would descend into the depths of despair, gripped by a sense of loss so profound it nearly paralyzed her. She tried not to cry, not wanting to seem (to Will or to herself) like a hysterical female, yet the tears would not be denied; two scalding streams would cascade down her cheeks, no matter how intently she focused on controlling her emotions.

Will did not seem bothered by her extreme shifts in mood. When she cried, he would lead her into the living room, draw her down onto the couch with him, and hold her on his lap. Most of the time, he didn't say a word – he just allowed her to cry in his arms.

The worst part, Maya thought, was that she felt so terribly, terribly guilty for not being able to save her brother. She tortured herself with "what if": What if she had opened up the bookstore's safe and given him all the cash she had when he first came to her? What if she had hidden him in the back of the Jeep and driven him straight to Will at the train station? What if she had called the police immediately, the moment Jericho disappeared into the rain, to report his whereabouts?

If she done any of those things, would her brother still be alive?

Maya did not voice these thoughts to Will, though she suspected he knew how she felt, because he made it a point to reiterate what McCormick had said: Maya had done everything she could for Jericho. Even if Maya had not been involved with his employers, Will insisted, she still could not have been expected to aid and abet a fugitive in his escape – she would have been setting herself up to go to prison, to lose everything she had worked for. It had been selfish, he finally came right out and declared over a lunch of cold-cuts on Monday afternoon, for Jericho to come to Maya in the first place; he should have headed directly for Canada, without stopping by to ask for her help.

Maya appreciated the wisdom and the truth in Will's words. More than that, she also recognized that Jericho had died as he had lived – hard and fast. She vividly recalled their father trying to warn Jericho years ago, on the day he had announced his plans to drop out of high school at fifteen (he had not made good on the threat, in the end), that a miserable life and an early death would be all he had to look forward to if he didn't clean himself up. Jericho had not listened, not that day or any other – Jericho had never listened to anyone who tried to help him, unless they were saying what he wanted to hear. Her brother had always done exactly as he pleased, and to hell with the consequences, right to the bitter end.

It was some comfort to Maya that Jericho had at least given as good as he had gotten, that he had died fighting back against a bully like Pruitt. Too often she had watched her brother cower and grovel at the feet of those bigger and stronger than himself. She liked to think that he had found some of his own reserves of inner strength before the end, that he had died bravely.

Whether or not that was the case, it was some solace to her (from what the police had told her, anyway) that Jericho had died quickly. She hoped he had not felt any pain.

She wasn't sure, however, that any of those thoughts excused her for not saving Jericho, from Pruitt or himself.

Maya didn't know how she would have survived Sunday and Monday had Will not been there to look after her. He took care of the funeral arrangements, meeting with the mortician to arrange the graveside service for Tuesday morning. (Family members only, per Maya's wishes – the last thing she wanted was to deal with a bunch of gossiping townspeople.) He wrote a succinct, elegant obituary for the local paper; he made a list of who sent flowers to the house so Maya could send thank-you cards later; he fielded phone calls from "concerned" (read: morbidly curious) neighbors and taped their messages to the refrigerator for Maya to read at her leisure. He cooked, cleaned, washed and ironed clothes, fixed coffee, read to her or told her stories from New Haven or walked with her around the lake when the hours until Jericho's funeral seemed to stretch interminably before her.

In short, Will acted like her lover, which was precisely what Maya needed at the moment.

Some things, unfortunately, Maya had to do herself, such as figuring out how to finance Jericho's funeral costsSunday evening, she forced herself to open up the lock-box in her parents' bedroom closet to determine if Jericho had any sort of life insurance policy; as she'd feared, he did not. When she confessed this to Will, knowing she couldn't possibly afford her brother's final expenses, he told her it had been taken care of: His employers were footing the bill.

Blood money, Maya thought darkly, but she didn't turn it down.

Because he was expected back in New Haven on Monday, Will phoned his roommates on Sunday afternoon with the story that a friend of his from high school had died suddenly, so he would be staying in Maine to attend the funeral. He explained that he had moved his train tickets to Wednesday at eight o'clock in the morning, so they shouldn't expect him back until later that evening.

Will's friends instantly rallied around him. Tyler offered to pick him up from the New Haven station after his afternoon class so Will didn't have to bother with a taxi; Jay offered to skip his classes and take the train up immediately if Will needed him, if he didn't want to be by himself. Of course, Will declined on both counts, but the important thing to Maya was that the offers had been made.

Maya really liked Will's roommates.

Thinking about Jay and Tyler, though, brought up another set of worries for Maya to contend with – namely, her fear that Will was risking his employers' wrath by remaining at her side. The rules (some of them, anyway) seemed to have been temporarily suspended between them in the wake of Jericho's death. For one thing, Will shamelessly set his mission aside and concentrated wholly on Maya, responding to and in many cases anticipating her every need. For another, he dropped the barrier of professionalism that normally stood between them and spent Sunday and Monday night in her bed, holding her tightly, kissing tears off of her cheeks.

That was, unfortunately, as far as their physical contact went. Despite the undeniable attraction heating the air between them, despite the fact that Maya's lips occasionally burned with the memory of how it felt to have Will's mouth pressed to hers, neither of them had been willing so far to risk escalating their relationship to the next logical level. Even in the midst of her grief, Maya understood that by being even as intimate as they had been, she and Will were playing a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with his employers; she did not want to be responsible for anything bad happening to Will. She didn't think she could stand it if she lost him, too, not after everything else.

From the moment Will had kissed her, Maya had suspected the truth – that this man, whose life was still such a mystery to her in so many ways, was really, honestly, completely in love with her. By Tuesday, she knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, how strong Will's feelings for her were, for nothing less than love would have persuaded him to lay aside his duties, to disregard the rules, so completely.

And so, in the midst of her sorrow and despair, Maya finally gave herself over to falling in love with Will back, in spite of all she still did not know or understand about him. She knew enough, she decided, from the way he had put her first in his life when she needed him most.

Tuesday, the day of Jericho's funeral, dawned clear and cold, a pale sun shining weakly from a cloudless blue sky. Maya woke to find Will spooned against her back, his arm wrapped securely around her waist; the warmth of his body, the powdery-musky scent of his skin, enveloped her in a shroud of safety. Maya lay perfectly still so as not to disturb him, aware that even though night had barely receded, Will would soon stir, rising early for his run as always. Once that happened, she would have to leave the haven of his arms to begin the long, exhausting ordeal of saying goodbye to her brother forever.

Maya was not yet prepared for that to happen. She wanted to hold off the inevitable for just a little while longer.

Jericho was dead. The thought alternately numbed her, horrified her, sickened her, and saddened her. Just as when her parents had died, Maya found it incredible that the world had gone on spinning in spite of her loss: She wanted the whole of humanity to pause, if only for a split-second, to acknowledge that her brother had lived, and that he had died.

Yet the world didn't care. Didn't care that in twenty-eight years of life, Jericho Sanders had never made a positive impact on anyone. Didn't care that he had died in the mud, his blood and brains spattered across a deserted stretch of road in the middle of nowhere. Didn't care that she, Maya, was now without a single binding human tie in all the universe: Her family was gone. She was all that remained of her parents' hopes for a happy family, a bright future, because Thomas and Lorelei's son would soon be joining them beneath the cold earth.

Heart-wrenching as it was, Maya had to admit that the loneliness was also strangely freeing. For the first time in a long, long while, she wasn't afraid, or anxious, or troubled. She wasn't constrained by the weight of caring what would happen to her mother when the addiction caught up to her again, or to her father when the chemotherapy stopped working, or to her brother when the cops finally tracked him down. She had only herself to live for now, only her own happiness to secure, only her own future to think about.

Turning over to face Will, who, without waking up, rolled onto his back, Maya decided that it was time to stop waiting for her life to begin. It was time to stop waiting for the world to offer her happiness on a silver platter. It was time to start taking control of her destiny, time to start fighting for what she wanted.

Perhaps for the first time in her entire life, she knew exactly what that was: He was sleeping peacefully beside her.

Maya woke Will by kissing his eyelids. He chuckled softly – a low, sexy, throaty laugh that set her insides tingling – as she feathered her lips across his cheek, along his jaw, up his neck, to his earlobe, which she caught between her teeth.

Will inclined his head slightly to one side, offering her fuller access to his throat, which she attacked with a series of tiny kisses. "Mmm, this is nice," he murmured, trailing his fingers through her hair. "Am I dreaming?"

"No," Maya whispered against the corner of his mouth. "You're wide awake."

Her heart was pounding. He seemed so willing, so pliable, so…seduce-able, if such a word existed. Would he let her – would he give in – would he finally break the rules?

Maya found she didn't care all that much how far Will would let things go. She wanted him badly enough at the moment to take whatever he would give her, whether that was a kiss (fine) or making love (fantastic).

Reaching up to tangle her fingers in his adorably-tousled hair, Maya shifted her weight so that she was lying on top of Will. At the same time, she brought her mouth down onto his, kissing him softly, stifling any protests he might have tried to make. Will didn't appear to be in the protesting mood, however; in fact, it was he who pressed harder, his teeth grazing her lower lip. Maya could feel the long-denied passion building between them. The heat of desire seeped into her skin, making her feel feverish.

Will's hands slid down Maya's back to her waist, urging her body closer to his. His chest was bare above his pajama bottoms; she traced the muscles in his stomach and arms ever so lightly with her fingertips as their kiss deepened, loving how strong he was, how beautifully formed.

As had become her habit the past few nights, Maya was wearing nothing more than Will's Yale tee-shirt and her underwear. Will slipped his hands beneath the hem of her shirt, splaying his palms across her lower back; his cool fingers against her over-heated skin made Maya shiver with desire.

_Don't stop, Will, don't ever stop…_

But the rules, it seemed, could only be bent so far, even in the midst of tragedy.

As if realizing all at once that he really had not strayed into a pleasant dream, Will reluctantly freed his mouth from Maya's, letting his head fall back on the pillow and his hands drop away from her. She could read the tension in his face: This was real, she knew he was thinking, and so were the consequences if he gave in to what both of them so desperately wanted.

Breathing hard, cerulean eyes hazy from passion, Will started, "Maya, this…I'm sorry, I can't – we can't – "

The last thing Maya wanted was for Will, who had been so unbelievably sweet to her for the last three days, to feel guilty about not putting their lives at risk simply to satisfy their carnal instincts. "Shh," she commanded, silencing him with a tender kiss. "It's okay, Will, it really is. I know we can't."

Afraid he would think she was being deliberately cruel, teasing him with what he couldn't have to satisfy her own vixen-ish ego, she added, "I just needed to feel you this morning. Just to have something good to hold onto. For later."

Later, when she stood by her brother's grave and watched his casket disappear beneath the cold, dark ground. Later, when she stood on the train platform and watched Will disappear back into his shadowy, dangerous world. Later, when she stood inside her empty house and watched her life disappear in pieces, splitting apart little by little along the fault lines of everything she had lost.

Overcome once more by sadness, Maya lowered her head to Will's shoulder. He locked his arms around her waist, cradling her as if she were a fragile piece of china that might break if handled too roughly, and buried his nose in her hair. "I'll be right beside you today," he vowed, brushing his lips across her forehead. "You're not alone in this, Maya, you know that, right?"

Maya pressed herself as tightly to Will as she possibly could, wishing they could melt into the same skin so she would never have to leave his arms. "I know," she assured him, savoring their last few minutes together before the new day called them forth. Lifting her head, she looked down into his eyes and confessed, "You know, Will Traveler, I honestly don't know what I'd do without you."

Will held her gaze steadily. "You'd be fine. You're stronger than you think, Maya."

Privately, Maya acknowledged the truth in Will's words. Yes, she had discovered in the past four months just how strong she really was. Why she hadn't seen before that she was capable, and intelligent, and resilient, Maya couldn't say. Perhaps her circumstances had never been dire enough; perhaps she had needed Will's love to awaken that part of her; perhaps growing up meant discovering aspects of oneself previously hidden beneath the turmoil of childhood and adolescence. Whatever the case, she was suddenly buoyed by the realization that, even after Will climbed on that train tomorrow, she would be all right. She would find a way to survive.

For now, though, she had to find a way to get through her brother's funeral.

Following Maya's wishes, Will had instructed the funeral home director that they would go directly to the small Presbyterian cemetery on the western edge of Deer Harbor, where a plot had been purchased for Jericho beside his parents. When Will and Maya drove up in her Jeep, the hearse was already there. Jericho's casket – a lovely cobalt blue with silver trim, covered in a gorgeous arrangement of snow-white roses, Will had chosen perfectly – waited to be lowered into the grave.

Maya sat for a minute, looking out over the windswept cemetery, ringed by trees whose fiery orange, red and gold leaves stood out in stark contrast against the colorless autumn sky. She remembered the first time she had attended a burial in this place, on a rainy morning in mid-May, with her father leaning on her arm for support and her brother so stoned he could hardly stumble from the funeral home's limousine to Lorelei's graveside. She remembered the last time she had come here as a mourner, on a blistering July afternoon five years ago, with seemingly the entire town in attendance – Thomas Sanders had been, after all, a life-long Deer Harbor resident and a well-liked member of the community.

Jericho had not shown up for their father's funeral; Maya had stood alone by the graveside, too numb from the exhaustion of her father's final, agonizing days to even wonder what sort of trouble her brother was getting into. She had found out soon enough, for later that night, Sheriff Barker had called to reluctantly inform her that Jericho was in the county jail for disturbing the peace: He had drunk himself into oblivion at Smarty's Tavern and proceeded to wander down Main Street at midnight howling obscenities at the stars.

Instead of bailing Jericho out, Maya had gone back to sleep, so weary from her own grief that she could not bring herself to deal with his antics that night. In the morning, when she had taken one thousand dollars they didn't have to spare from her father's savings account and paid his bond, Jericho had screamed and screamed at her for leaving him in jail all night, not caring that they were in the middle of town, that everyone who had attended their father's funeral the day before was now watching Thomas's son make a fool out of himself – again.

_How do you forgive someone for all of that pain? How do you accept who they were and what they did, even after they're gone?_

"Maya?" Will was regarding her tenderly from the driver's seat. "It's time, sweetheart."

Sweetheart. The endearment brought a smile to Maya's lips. Was this what falling in love was, she wondered – finding happiness at the other person's side no matter how awful the world proved itself to be?

This time, treading the short gravel path that led from the cemetery's main road to the Sanders' family plot, Maya had someone to lean on – Will. He tucked her arm through his and kept her there, close against his side, throughout the short service.

Lorelei had been a strangely devout church-goer when she wasn't using, and Maya still thought of Reverend Goss as her "pastor" though she hadn't attended services since her mother's death. The minister had readily agreed to conduct the service when Will had phoned him on Sunday. Now, as Maya and Will reached the graveside, he greeted them both warmly and began with a prayer. This was followed by a few kind words about his memories of Jericho as a little boy, then a brief homily on the peace that could be found in death when the promise of eternal life awaited the departed.

As Maya had wished, only she and Will stood beside the grave. She wondered, as the minister's words washed over her like the chill autumn breeze toying with the hem of her black sheath dress, who else would have come had she opened the service to the public. Margot, certainly. Sheriff Barker, probably. Some of the people she knew from the Chamber of Commerce, just to be polite. A few town gossips, who would want the full scoop to deliver at the beauty salon or the coffee shop the next day. Beyond that, however, Maya could think of no one in Deer Harbor – no one anywhere, in fact – who would have wanted to say goodbye to her brother.

She suddenly realized how little she knew about Jericho's life. Had he ever been in love? Had he (heaven forbid) ever fathered a child on some poor girl? Had he ever dreamed of seeing exotic places, like Maya did? What books had he read? What movies had he loved? What foods had he craved?

Jericho had held himself apart from her their entire lives. Maya didn't understand why; she thought of herself, looking back, as a sweet, patient child, always taking care of their mother and doting on their father, trying desperately to fill the empty places and sorrowful rends in their lives that Lorelei's addictions had created. Yet Jericho had hardly spoken to her. Even a five-year age difference couldn't fully explain that, could it?

_Mom loved him. She always confided in him. I was just sort of…there, when the two of them were together. But Dad, Dad was mine._

Was that the answer? Had Jericho resented being their mother's confidante instead of her child? Had he shut himself off from Maya to protect her from sharing with him the burden of Lorelei's secrets? Had he longed for the love and affection Thomas showed his daughter, but never seemed to offer unconditionally to his son, who looked and acted so much like Lorelei?

Maya supposed she would never learn the answers to those questions, because the only person who could have given them to her was lying encased in the casket before her.

Tears spilled down Maya's cheeks. Will gripped her arm more tightly, letting her know that he was there if she needed him.

"And so we commit the body of Jericho Skye Sanders to God's keeping," Reverend Goss declared, reaching the end of his short graveside sermon. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust." The silver-haired minister bowed his head. "Let us pray."

Pray. Maya hadn't prayed, not really, in years. Lorelei had prayed every day, Maya remembered, kneeling by the edge of the bed she and Thomas shared, her lips moving frantically without making any sound, her eyes squeezed shut tight as if to block out some unpleasant scene from her mind. What had her mother asked for in those desperate moments? The strength to overcome her addiction? The will to live for her children? The protection of angels for those she herself was unable to protect?

_Your angels didn't come, Mom – you failed us. You failed Jericho. And now he sleeps beside you – and I'm all that's left of us…_

Maya turned her face into Will's shoulder as the grief took her. He wrapped his arms around her and gathered her close; she sobbed until her shoulders shook, cried until the front of his suit jacket was soaked, until her anguish and fury bled together and she was too confused and exhausted to know how she felt about her brother or her mother or anything in her life at that point.

A sudden, overpowering urge to escape the graveyard flooded Maya. She didn't want to be there when Jericho's casket was lowered, she thought frantically, unsure why this prospect had become so irrationally terrifying. She needed to get away, to be somewhere quiet where she wouldn't have to think, or stand, or feel anymore.

"I'd like to go home now, please," she managed to announce, in an almost unnaturally calm voice.

Reverend Goss stared down wordlessly at the ground. A bit flustered, Will said quickly, "Of course, if that's what you want." He hesitated, looking at her closely as if fearful that she was falling ill again, like she had at the fair in Caseyville. "Can you walk? Do you need me to pull the car up?"

"No, I can make it." Maya leaned heavily into Will, remembering as she started to turn away that she hadn't thanked the minister. "Oh, Reverend," she cried, pulling away from Will's side long enough to embrace the elderly pastor. "Thank you so much. That was beautiful. I just-I just can't be here anymore…"

Reverend Goss, always a gentle soul, smiled kindly at her. "It's all right, Maya Rose."

_Maya Rose. _She had forgotten that quirk about him, that he had always called her by her first and middle names.

"You take care of yourself," the minister went on, squeezing her hands. "I'll be praying for you."

With some people, Maya knew, such a statement would have been nothing more than words. Not to Reverend Goss; he was practically a saint. She felt better, stronger, just with the promise that he would be bending heaven's ear on her behalf.

Maya had some soul-searching of her own to do before the day was out. Jericho's death had awoken in her a sense of the fragility of life; she suddenly saw that hers was passing her by half-lived. She didn't want to come to the end of her days with no one to stand by her graveside. She didn't want to look back in her final moments and regret everything she had never dared to do. She wanted to find the trajectory of her life, wanted to figure out where she went from this moment on, now that she was, to a large extent, totally on her own.

When they returned to the house, Maya told Will that she needed some time to herself. Of course, he responded automatically, whatever she wanted – but, he added, he would be right downstairs if she needed him.

Maya went to her parents' bedroom, a place she had hardly set foot in for five years. For some reason, she was drawn there, as if with all of her family gone from this world she could at last allow herself to remember them, to miss them, to experience full-force the pain of losing them.

Ever whimsical, Lorelei had decorated the bedroom in unicorns. Maya pulled the heavy powder-blue drapes aside to let in the weak afternoon sunlight, then wandered around the room studying the dust-covered, chintzy statues: White unicorns, rainbow-colored unicorns, silver unicorns; unicorns on music boxes, stuffed unicorn dolls, hand-painted porcelain unicorns, glass unicorns – unicorns in every shape and size. Many of the figurines Maya remembered her mother purchasing at the roadside flea markets she had loved to frequent. Treasure hunting, Lorelei had called those Saturday afternoon excursions. Junk shopping, Thomas had retorted, though he had always seemed to enjoy himself immensely while driving his little family all over the state in search of another cheap knick-knack to please his wife's fancy.

Her family had shared some happy times, Maya thought, sinking back onto the musty-smelling blue comforter atop her parents' king-sized bed. She remembered those trips with the same fondness as their picnics in Fairyland: Jericho next to her in the backseat, for once taking notice of her and singing along with her to the country songs their father liked (George Strait, Waylen Jennings, Willie Nelson – the classics); Lorelei in the passenger's seat, braiding and unbraiding her waist-length blond hair, lifting her clear-as-a-bell voice to mingle with theirs over the sappy, sometimes silly lyrics; Thomas behind the wheel, catching Maya's eye and smiling in the rearview mirror, holding his wife's hand where it lay on the seat between them.

The world had been right in those moments, so long as her mother's eyes remained free of their drug-induced glaze.

Maya snuggled down into her father's pillow. She missed him everyday; he had been her best friend, her greatest cheerleader. She wondered what Thomas would think of Will if he was here to advise her. No, that wasn't the question, really: Will Traveler would have been Thomas Sanders' dream for his daughter, a smart, loving, humble young man who wanted to give Maya the world. Any father would have adored Will.

No, the real question was, if Thomas had known what Maya knew about Will, if he had been there to see how the fiction of Will Traveler separated from the reality of the man using that name in oftentimes unsettling ways, would he have wanted Maya to be with Will then? Or would he have told her to forget it, that Will was already enslaved to a master with whom Maya could never compete – his duty, his orders, his work – just as Lorelei had never been truly free to love Thomas as he had loved her?

_I am not my father. This is my life, my choice, my future._

If it was time to start taking control of her own destiny, Maya decided, then it was also time to stop worrying that she would in her own love life repeat her parents' mistakes. Realizing this, a calming clarity descended on Maya; it was like a veil had been lifted from her eyes, allowing her to finally see the road ahead of her.

Had she been a superstitious person, Maya would almost have said that her parents' spirits reached out across the cosmos and whispered to her, giving her permission to go on living – and nudging her in the right direction to do so.

Will was sitting on the couch reading _A Brief History of Time _when Maya padded silently down the stairs. He had cast off his jacket and tie; his socks and shoes were stowed by the back door, his bare feet propped, as was his custom, on the coffee table as he balanced the book on his knees. His tailored black suit pants were wrinkled, his wine-colored button-down was open to the throat, his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and his hair, as ever, was mussed. Maya stood in the doorway for a moment watching him, absorbed in his reading. It struck her then, with the same clarity she had experienced in her parents' bedroom minutes before: _This is the man I love._

How amazingly, astonishingly, perfectly simple the world could be sometimes.

The grief and turmoil of the day fell away from Maya, at least for a time – she didn't delude herself that her wounds would heal so easily, but she was grateful for a reprieve from despair. A newfound lightness in her step, she walked over and sat down beside Will, who immediately placed the book aside and focused entirely on her.

He took both of her hands in his and linked their fingers together. "You okay?" he asked, studying her with his trained spy's eyes even as his voice conveyed all the sweetness she associated with the "real" Will. "You were up there a while. I was kind of starting to worry."

Maya attempted for the millionth time to puzzle out the mystery of Will Traveler, undercover agent. Instead of the usual murky conclusions she was able to draw – that underneath the merciless exterior, underneath the duplicity and betrayal, he was a good man – she suddenly saw that Will was not two people, Will the spy and Will the man, anymore than she was "weak" Maya in her less-than-perfect moments and "strong" Maya in her surprisingly resilient ones. Will was just who he was, all of the time, not split down the middle into good and bad, light and dark.

_He's just Will. He's just the one I love._

Such thoughts seemed to rise up from the depths of Maya's soul, as if she had really understood the enigmatic man beside her all along but had not been prepared, for whatever reason, to see him for who he was. Now that she did, Maya discovered she had more important questions for Will than who he was, or why he did what he did, or if he was working for the right side.

She wanted to know where she fit into his life, his world, plain and simple.

"Will, I need to ask you something."

Walls crashed down behind Will's eyes, shielding his secrets from view. It hurt, knowing he kept so much from her, but Maya understood the necessity: Will was protecting her, protecting them, from what she couldn't know.

"What happens to us when your assignment is over?"

Obviously startled, Will did not answer straightaway. He traced the knob of her shoulder – Maya was still wearing the sleeveless dress she had donned that morning – and watched the progress of his finger while saying slowly, "Well, Maya, some of that depends on me, and some of that depends on you, so…I guess I'm not really sure how to answer."

Maya had watched Will concoct enough lies to recognize absolute honesty when he offered it to her. Gently, respecting that openness was not only difficult but also dangerous for him, she prompted, "Please try to tell me, Will – I need to know."

Will stood and paced the length of the room, more nervous than Maya had ever seen him. "Okay," he began, running a hand through his hair in the habitual, unconscious way Maya had come to adore. "Okay, well, maybe…Maybe I can do it this way: I can tell you what I would like to happen, and then – then you can tell me what _you _want to happen, and we'll see where we are."

A twinge of amusement caused Maya to hide a smile behind her hand. In some regards, Will, who was so often exceptional, was no different than any other man: Discussing his feelings, having a "state of the relationship" talk, unnerved him.

"My job, what I do, it's very important to me," Will proceeded, seeming to force his feet to a halt in front of the hearth. He leaned back against the cool stone and folded his arms over his chest, looking Maya in the eye though it appeared to be difficult for him to do so. "Before I came here, before I met you, I didn't think I'd ever want anything else but that in my life. I mean, not anything else that I'd have to put _first. _I figured I'd get married someday, but I thought, Hey, I'll find a girl who doesn't even care to know what I do. She'll be this girl who'll look a certain way and act a certain way, the kind of girl who really all she'll see is a successful guy with some money, and that'll be that – we'll get married, buy a house, have some kids, retire to Florida."

Maya couldn't stifle a giggle. "How romantic," she teased.

Will shrugged. "That's the thing – I never wanted 'romance.' I wanted the picture-perfect life: the big house, the right car, the elite neighborhood, the pretty wife, the beautiful children. I mean, I wanted those things sort of in the abstract, or whatever. Like…Like a cover I could live for myself, forever."

Odd as Will's revelations were, Maya thought she could identify with his motivation for wanting something less than a mind-blowing, life-altering romance, for wanting a life that could be lived in half-measures of emotion, never demanding that he be wholly present (emotionally, anyway) for anyone. After all, in a way Maya had sought out a similar existence when she had removed herself from the real world following her father's death. She had retreated not just into her business, which was easy to throw herself into, but also into the books she loved, where romance, sex, adventure, even death were safe because it was all a fantasy. Living a fantasy, living a fiction, was a lot easier than really loving someone, than really building a life together. She could sympathize with Will's desire to have it all – the pleasure of love without the risk of love.

But Maya didn't want to play it safe anymore, and she sensed that Will was telling her that he didn't want to, either.

Time to take the plunge.

"And since you met me?"

Will swallowed audibly. "A lot about me's changed since I met you, Maya. A lot about what I want has changed. I'd-I'd like for you to be part of my life. I don't just mean coming to Deer Harbor on long weekends, or dropping by in between missions," Will rushed on, as if he needed to get the words out quickly before he lost his nerve. "I mean, I'd…I want to spend the rest of my life with you, that's what I'm trying to say. And I want it to be a real life, not a cover."

Perfection. To love and to be loved in return was perfection.

Maya started to her feet, so giddy she felt sure she would float rather than walk to Will, but he held up a hand to stop her. The graveness of his expression warned her that the credits had yet to roll – the music had not yet begun to swell as the curtain fell on the blissful lovers.

Perfection, it seemed, was not immune to reality.

"The people I work for don't exactly encourage undercover agents to raise a family," Will went on, scuffing his toe along the edge of the fireplace. "And the way I've lived these past few years, I can see why – it wouldn't be any kind of a life for you, if I was always off pretending to be somebody I'm not.

"But if I can pull off this operation in New Haven," Will's eyes gleamed with determination, telling Maya that he intended to do just that at all costs, "I'm not going to be undercover anymore, I'm pretty much certain of that. I can't tell you much about it. Just think of it as a promotion. To an office job. Nine-to-five, home on weekends, that kind of thing. I think I could make it all work then, Maya – work for us, I mean."

_I accept, _Maya wanted to shout. She forced herself to stay quiet, though, to let Will finish, because he obviously had more to say. She suspected some of it wasn't going to be pleasant.

Will hugged his arms tighter against his chest, as if trying to protect himself from her reaction to his next words. "I'm not going to lie to you and say it'd be a perfect life, or even a normal life," he confessed. "I'd still have orders to carry out. I'd still have secrets I have to keep from you. But it would be a lot more than what we have to make do with now."

So, Maya understood Will to be telling her, she could have him – if he succeeded in framing two innocent people for terrorism, thereby ascending the ranks of this shadowy organization he had devoted his life to. She could have him if she could accept that she would always know very little about what went on in the parts of his life that didn't involve her – namely, his work, which was a huge part of who he was, or at least who he saw himself as. She could have him if she could live with knowing that what she didn't know about him, about his work, would probably have angered and sickened her.

Wryly, Maya reflected that perhaps brutal honesty wasn't all it was cracked up to be. She thought she preferred the sugar-coated version of their future Will had offered her a few weeks ago, after their time in Fairyland.

Will was watching her from beneath his eyelashes, his expression guarded. For once, Maya understood that what he was trying to conceal from her was not the truth but rather his own vulnerability: He was trying to make it easier for her to decide for herself what she wanted by not showing her how much her choice mattered to him.

That was love. That was sacrifice. That was _real._

Getting to her feet, Maya crossed the room to Will's side, coming to a stop when they were toe to toe. She reached for his hands, placed them on her hips and linked her arms behind his neck. "So what depends on me?" she asked, smiling inside to see the familiar fire heating up behind Will's eyes. "What about all of this depends on me?"

"Everything depends on you, Maya," Will replied simply. "Whether or not you could be happy in that kind of life, if that's how you could see yourself living, forever – because once you're in, Maya, you're in," he cautioned solemnly. "No walking away."

Maya skimmed her lips along the underside of Will's jaw. "Hell of a prenup," she returned lightly.

"It's not a joke, Maya."

When she looked up into his eyes, they were blazing with something more than desire – she couldn't even name the emotion she saw there. "If you and I take this, what's happening between us, to my employers and ask for their permission to be together, once they give it, they won't let you walk away. You'd be in too deep."

Maya fought down a shudder. Shackled by Will's employers for the rest of her life, even though she couldn't imagine a time when she wouldn't want to be with Will – could she live in such an invisible prison?

"I wish I could give you everything you ever wanted, Maya. I wish I could tell you to just pick the life you'd like to lead and I could make that happen, wherever you wanted to live, whatever you wanted to do. But this is all I've got to give – a lot of secrets, a lot of questions that can't be asked, a lot of things I can never, ever tell you. That's not gonna be easy, not for either one of us."

Fear nipped at Maya's heart, threatening to chase away her earlier calm. What was Will trying to tell her? Did he want her to walk away, for her own sake?

Was he rejecting her but doing so in such a loving way she had totally missed the point?

Seeming to sense her confusion, Will rested his forehead against hers, his eyes a deeper green than Maya had ever seen them. "I'm saying this to you because as much as I want to be with you – and you wouldn't believe how much that is – I don't think I could stand it if you woke up ten years from now and hated me for bringing you into this world."

"Hate you?" The word shocked Maya into an instantaneous response. "Will, I could never – "

"You could, Maya." Will sounded so certain that she didn't know how to argue. A spasm of self-loathing crossed his handsome face. "Trust me, if you knew what all I've done, you could hate me."

Tendrils of dread wrapped around Maya's heart. What he had done…That had such an ominous ring to it, she found that she lacked the courage to push for an explanation, for details. Anyway, wasn't it enough that she already knew what it was that Will still intended to do, to Jay and Tyler, in order to secure this future he was offering her?

_Can I live with that? Can I live with my future costing two innocent people theirs?_

_Can I live with never knowing what Will has done that could make me hate him?_

Gripping her waist tightly, Will pressed, "So I guess what it comes down to, Maya, is that what happens after I finish this operation depends on whether or not you love me enough to accept that this is the only future we can have together."

Ah. So the world really could be that simple after all.

Maya took Will's face in her hands. "Listen to me," she ordered, drawing his mouth ever nearer to hers as she spoke. "I know it's going to be hard. I know it won't be a fairytale.

"But I don't want a fairytale, Will – I want a real life. I want you. I want us. I want," she barely touched her lips to his, "this."

Will was kissing her then, roughly, almost violently, all concern for the rules obliterated. Maya fell back against the living room wall, losing her breath as his body pressed urgently into hers; she felt the restraint Will had always shown even in their most intimate moments falling away, glimpsed the promise of a fierce, fiery passion in his stormy eyes, tasted it in his bruising kiss.

Once ignited, the spark of desperate desire swiftly burned to an ember, however, leaving them each flushed and breathless and longing, Maya knew, for more. Yet despite the promises they had made one another moments before, they both recognized that the future still had to wait. Will had his mission to complete and his employers to persuade; they couldn't be together, not really, until then.

Their eyes met and they both laughed at each other's tousled hair and rumpled clothes. For an instant, they were just two young people in love, swept up in a moment of passion that had very nearly seen them tumbling to the living room floor in a competition to see who could undress whom the fastest.

Maya let the moment linger in her heart, sealed the happiness up in her memory like a wellspring she could draw on in the long, lonely weeks to come. She would be all right now, she was certain of it, knowing that Will was coming back not just in six weeks but always – he would always come back to her. She could live on that promise for the time being.

And as for the outcome of his mission? Well, Maya told herself, the end was a long way off – anything could happen between now and then. Anything already had happened. But no matter what, she trusted Will to make the right decision. He was a spy, and he was also a good man.

Amazing, inexplicable, how the world kept on turning even in the face of unspeakable loss. On that gray November day, Maya buried her brother and closed the book on one chapter of her own life, only to turn the page to a whole new story. The story of her and Will.

_Author's Note: No, this is not the end, but I thought our lovers needed a little bit of resolution here! I promise to be back with more as soon as I can, but please be forewarned that while I work out some plot points and "life stuff," the next update may take some time. In the meantime, please review and let me know what you think about how the story is shaping up. _


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12:**

"**Friendship"**

_New Haven, Connecticut_

_Eighteen months before Drexler bombing_

The six weeks after he left Maya in Deer Harbor to recover from her brother's death – to recover, Will could tell himself when he wasn't compartmentalizing, from the murder he had committed without fully appreciating the grief it would bring to her life – proved to be simultaneously some of the best and the worst times of Will's life. The best for the obvious reason that he had Maya's love. Their future was no longer a question mark, a daydream he entertained without knowing if her dreams ran along the same lines; she had made her choice, accepting the terms Will, after watching Kim struggle with the compromises she would have to make to join Jay's world, had worried she would find too repulsive, too confining.

But the second half of his first fall semester at Yale was also a special time for Will because he finally seemed to have found a place where he belonged. He liked what he was learning, he liked where he was living, he liked the pattern of his days. And he liked Jay and Tyler, tremendously. In fact, if he were honest with himself, Will would have said he was coming to think of his roommates as the brothers he had never had. He had even found that when he looked at Tyler, he no longer thought of Carlton Fog – he just saw Tyler.

Which was what made those weeks the worst of his life as well, because everyday Will was reminded of how he would betray his roommates' friendship.

Will's real childhood had been awkward, mostly because he had been awkward: Too smart for the public schools the kids on his block attended, he had also been too working-class for the elite prep school his hard-won academic scholarship paid for him to attend. When he visited his father on holidays and in the summer, the young man had never been included in neighborhood football games or invited to backyard barbecues or asked to join a group going to the movies. The kids where Will grew up had thought him a stuck-up nerd and had shunned him accordingly.

At school, his life had hardly been better: Though he made friends easily enough with the handful of other boys there on scholarship, he had been scrawny enough to attract a good deal of bullying from the wealthy, privileged students who knew their last names would protect them from the headmaster. Until Will had finally toughened up and taught himself to fight with surprising skill, running and weight-lifting daily until his compact body boasted a deceptively-lean sheath of muscle, he had been tormented mercilessly; after the bigger boys found out that speed and agility counted for a lot more than bulk and brute force in a street fight, he had simply been left alone, never included.

Yale was a completely different story. Many of the undergraduate students were affluent, it was true – they drove around campus in BMWs and Mercedes, just like the professors. The graduate students, however, were mostly poor, living on student loans or fellowships while hoping that their Ivy League education would result in the big pay-off. Obviously, since they were studying at Yale, they were also brilliant. Thus Will had at last discovered a place in the world where brains and hard work were valued far more than money or connections.

In sum, it was a new experience for Will to be liked by everyone around him, especially when the people he spent his days with were of the sort he actually respected, not crazed militants looking to bring down the government or coked-up drug dealers looking to be the next great American gangsters. Will wasn't quite sure how to handle his popularity. For the integrity of his mission, he tried to maintain a low profile; he passed himself off as the good-natured, science-nerd "kid brother" roommate, careful to let Tyler's charisma and Jay's all-American appeal shine brightly enough that quiet, amiable, easy-going Will was easily overshadowed in their presence. Nevertheless, the small, close-knit circle of business and law students who spent hours at the Castle, as well as Kim's two artist roommates, seemed to truly adore Will. He was everyone's favorite guy.

Being adored was nice, Will had to admit, even as he worked hard at being forgettable.

Upon returning from Deer Harbor after Halloween, Will had discovered that his roommates were determined to cheer him up over the loss of his "friend." (If they only knew, Will thought darkly, that what he really needed cheering up from was watching his girlfriend's heart break because he had taken away her last remaining family member and then lied through his teeth about it to her.) Cheering Will up primarily involved, in addition to copious amounts of alcohol, distracting him by focusing intently on pulling off the prank Will had suggested for the law-school-versus-med-school practical joke competition.

Jay's friends from the law school understandably wanted to win the traditional battle. But soon, Will realized his plot had been embraced by a larger sphere than simply Jay and a few of his pals. Tyler's friends from the School of Management, including a feisty brunette named Nell Graham whom Tyler appeared to be falling hard for, seemed to have made it their personal mission to ensure that Will, the affable chemistry geek they had adopted into their clique of urbane sophisticates, should not be disappointed by the execution of his fire-drill hoax.

Likewise, Kim's roommates established a significant stake in the action. The two young women, a tiny purple-haired painter given to wearing berets and scarves whom everyone called Rabbit (though no one seemed to know why) and a frighteningly-feminist, chain-smoking lithographer who preferred to be called by her last name, Jones, also appeared inclined to score a victory for Kim's boyfriend. For their "darling boy," as Rabbit affectionately called Will.

Will could actually have enjoyed the late-night planning sessions, the elaborately-plotted thefts from the chemistry labs, and the highly-choreographed mission design if it weren't for the fact that he knew how deeply Jay and Tyler would regret this prank one day.

Whenever such thoughts threatened to overcome his good sense, causing Will to seriously contemplate "throwing" the mission (even the best operatives made mistakes, after all), he would retreat into his room, lock the door, and write a letter to Maya.

In these letters he described their future to her as he saw it. They would buy a house in Virginia, somewhere near D.C., where Will hoped to work once the New Haven op was finished. They would scout out one of those up-scale, residential neighborhoods where every soccer mom drove a Lexus and every corporate husband owned a sports car for weekends; Will had grown up less than six miles from such luxury, and he wanted a shot at living like the better half.

Will also understood that both he and Maya would tire of the pretentiousness of affluent suburbia, though. So for the sake of their sanity, they would also keep a summer house on the Carolina coast, probably near the Outer Banks. There, they could store their boat (a small yacht, Will decided, nothing fancy, just comfortable and functional) year-round. The boat would be more than a status symbol. Will was an excellent sailor – his father had taught him, his real father – and given Maya's love of the water, he knew she would find it a kind of paradise to spend days exploring hidden coves and quiet islands, to spend nights below deck exploring one another to the rhythmic music of the gently-rolling waves.

Having no families to contend with, Will decided that he and Maya would Christmas in St. Bart's, stay at a luxury resort and play all day in the warm surf while back home their friends trudged through ice and snow. And some years they would have to spend their wedding anniversary in Paris, a city Will was certain he could learn to love if he had Maya to share it with. Their anniversary would naturally fall in early summer – Will was a traditionalist, he wanted a June bride – a perfect time to visit the City of Lovers before the heat set in.

Regardless of whether or not they traveled for their anniversary, every July, to commemorate the month when they had first met and fallen in love, Will's letters promised Maya that they would leave their cares and responsibilities behind for four weeks while taking up residence in their summer home. There they would laze away the days making love in a hammock on the back porch, or exploring the coast on their yacht, or reading to one another on the beach, or fishing in the lake Will would be sure was behind the house, in memory of Maya's home in Deer Harbor. Oh, and they would picnic, too, and go to outdoor concerts in local parks, and drink wine with their lunches because they had nothing else in all the world to do except be together.

Will also spent a large portion of these letters detailing to Maya how she would fit into his work. He had given a lot of thought to her being his "asset," he explained, and he had decided that she would not need to know much of anything about his orders; her involvement would mainly serve to reassure the Partners that she was loyal, to them as well as to Will.

Once he left off being an undercover agent, Will hoped to be a handler, like Joseph. He told Maya that she might actually enjoy helping him with the logistics of training and managing operatives. Mostly, though, he assured Maya that she would be free to live her life as she saw fit – run a bookstore, if she wished, or get her college degree and become a teacher. Whatever she wanted. They wouldn't need for her to work at all if she didn't want to, if – and Will stressed that this was a big "if," because he knew they hadn't yet broached the subject of children as a couple – she perhaps wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. Will would earn more than enough for the both of them; Maya would never have to worry about money again.

At the end of every letter, Will told Maya how he loved her, how he missed her, how he counted the days, hours and minutes until he could see her again.

Then Will tore the letters into tiny bits and scattered those pieces in different trash cans across campus. He could never allow anyone, not even Maya, to read them; the information in them was too damning, both to Will personally and to the Partners. He couldn't put Hometown at risk by mailing off a love-letter hinting at the existence of a top-secret government program designed to spy on American citizens.

No, the letters were never intended to be sent. They were intended to keep Will on-task, despite his growing reservations about the operation's validity and about his own ability to maintain professional objectivity where his roommates were concerned.

Alex would have advised him to pull himself off the assignment immediately. Will knew that was wisdom; though it would definitely have hampered his career, had it not been for the future he was trying to secure with Maya, he actually would have done just that. He would have called up Joseph and told him flat out that he wasn't at all certain that, when it came down to it, he would be able to stand by while Jay and Tyler took the fall for crimes they hadn't committed.

The usual remedies for what Will understood were natural qualms about harming innocent people had stopped working to either keep Will committed to the assignment or to stave off the night-terrors he was experiencing with increasing frequency, all involving some variation of waking to find himself bloodied and dying with his roommates in a similar state nearby. Even telling himself that the Partners could see the "big picture," that everything he was suffering was really in service of a more important cause, hadn't sounded like a convincing argument for continuing the operation since Will had returned from Jericho's funeral to discover that his roommates were so concerned for his well-being over the supposed loss of his friend that they were foregoing studying for midterms to take him out to the bars, where they all proceeded to get blackly drunk (or at least Will, aware of the tongue-loosening effects of alcohol, had pretended to).

Perhaps if he had ever known true friendship before, Will would not have been so touched by Jay and Tyler's many kindnesses. As it was, every time one of them did something nice for him, treated him like family instead of a relative stranger, he hated himself a bit more for contributing to their destruction.

Even while he was busy being sickened by himself, however, Will couldn't help but be amused by the complexity of the "mission" his friends had concocted. When he had suggested the fire-drill, he had imagined a simple undertaking – having planned and executed some very difficult operations, after all, Will didn't fancy playing a practical joke on some med students to be terribly complicated. Yet the others seemed determined to "do the thing properly," as Nell said over glasses of spicy red wine shortly after Will returned from Deer Harbor. Doing the prank "properly" seemed to involve things like handmade maps and diagrams, not-so-casual stakeouts of the med students' dorm, and even a code for referring to aspects of the op that Will suspected Hometown's cryptographers would have been hard-pressed to break. The end result was that, by making the prank such serious business, Jay, Tyler and their friends had created a situation whereby everyone who was in on the joke couldn't help but be caught up in the fun-loving excitement – including Will.

And so, by the next-to-last week of the fall semester, after a half-dozen clandestine meetings in the Castle's living room, their plan for victory was in place.

The hoax was to be conducted as such: Jay and Will were responsible for what Rabbit called "infiltration," which basically meant getting the stink-bombs into the dormitory without the med students spotting them; Tyler was responsible for what she called "the kill" (Will shuddered a bit at the reference but hastily submerged his memories of Oklahoma), which meant organizing the grand finale of the prank.

Since Jay had eschewed the idea of water balloons as too anti-climactic, Tyler had suggested a full-on water attack, to which Kim had immediately suggested fire-hoses. Obtaining those had seemed like an insurmountable problem to Will, Tyler and Jay, but together Kim and Nell had rather effortlessly charmed the chief of the local fire station into letting them borrow a fire-hose and allowing them to connect it to the fire hydrant outside the med school dorms for the evening. After Jay and his "squad," comprised of Kim in addition to a business student named Isaac and a law student named Reggie, snuck in the side entrance of the dorm and detonated their bombs in the first and second floor hallways, as Will and a business student named Eddie Hahn meanwhile detonated their bombs at the back entrance, the idea was for the med students to be forced out the front door to escape the noxious odors. Tyler and the remainder of their team – Nell, Rabbit, Jones, a business student named Marco and three other law students named Penelope, Vincent and Cassidy – would then blast the unsuspecting victims with the fire-hose as they ran out onto the snow-covered lawn.

How the actual prank came off was of no operational importance to Will: After lifting the materials for the stink bombs and their detonation from the chemistry lab, he had assembled them with his roommates' assistance, ensuring that Jay and Tyler could not successfully deny on a polygraph having handled explosive materials. Nevertheless, as the day of the hoax approached, Will found that he too was experiencing a certain amount of nervous excitement, just like the rest of their group. He wanted them to win, too.

On the evening that the plan was finally to be executed – a frigid Thursday in early December – their crew of pranksters gathered at the Castle for a late pre-op dinner of pizza and beer. Tyler delivered a rousing, alcohol-enhanced rendition of Shakespeare's "St. Crispin's Day Speech" from _Henry V, _which had them all rolling with laughter even as they banged their glasses on the table and roared, "hear, hear," like good soldiers. Then all that was left was the waiting for an hour or so until they could be assured the med students were asleep; it seemed like a short time, but Will knew from experience how endless the minutes could feel when every sense was highly attuned for the start of a mission.

As often happened when their entire group was together and the Castle got a bit loud and rowdy, Will ended up on the back steps with Rabbit, who loved a crowd – she wasn't a show-off, precisely, though she liked being the center of attention – but who loved her cigarettes more. Since Tyler had banned smoking inside the house from day one, Rabbit always stepped out at some point to light up. Will, who felt a bit uneasy in crowds (sniper training had made him painfully aware that in a press of people he couldn't spot a potential enemy), usually drifted outside with the waif-like artist.

Will didn't smoke. He found cigarettes disgusting, actually. But he had learned that smokers were a fiercely loyal community – bum a cig off of someone, offer up a lighter, stand around taking long drags, and one was suddenly part of the club, thereby privy to all sorts of secrets that would never be shared with (of all the unnatural things) a non-smoker. So he had learned to tolerate the occasional cigarette when it served his purposes on a mission, like it did when he was subtly pumping Rabbit for information about Kim, whom Will, despite their friendship, still feared could throw a wrench into his plans because of the influence she held over Jay.

Bundled up in coats and hats against the bitter night air, their breaths frosting around them, Will and Rabbit huddled close together on the steps for warmth while drawing on the Marlboro Lights she preferred. "Fascist," Rabbit noted good-naturedly, meaning Tyler's anti-smoking campaign. She made a similar comment – never with any actual malice – every time she and Will were forced outdoors to smoke.

Will grinned as he pretended to enjoy pulling down a lungful of tar and nicotine. Another thing he wouldn't miss about being an undercover operative: the opportunity to develop lung cancer.

The sliding-glass door behind them squeaked open, catching a bit on its track because of the ice packed around the edges. A burst of noise and heat from inside flowed over Will and his companion.

Turning, Will found Eddie Hahn sneering at them from the doorway. "Tyler said to tell you we're leaving in forty-five minutes, at one-thirty sharp," Eddie announced. A mean-spirited glint appeared in his eyes even as he pitched his voice to be teasing. "So get your freak on quick, okay?"

"Fuck off, Eddie," Rabbit muttered as the door closed.

An awkward silence fell, during which Will reflected sourly that people with small, unhappy lives like Eddie Hahn could never stand for anyone else to be content.

The awkwardness that resulted from Eddie's comment was partially Will's fault. He knew his friends suspected a romance was blooming between the bashful, fairly straight-laced country boy and the out-going, politically-active, adventurous New York artist, because Will and Rabbit got along famously and had gravitated toward one another's company since being introduced in early September. Will was also aware that Rabbit harbored a crush on him; she was subtle about it, never pushing the boundaries of friendship, though she found ways to show her feelings. Like sitting near him on the couch even when other seats were open, or touching his arm while he helped her into her coat, or standing closer than was strictly necessary while they talked.

Had he not already been head over heels in love with Maya, Will supposed he would have been attracted to Rabbit. She had a certain tragic flare that he found oddly appealing. Unlike so many of the self-important, narcissistic art students Will had encountered in Kim's circle of friends, during their long smokers' chats Will had discovered that Rabbit was actually very bright, very serious about her art, very concerned for the plight of others, very _grounded _– surprising for a girl who had grown up in Greenwich Village with her single mother, a bisexual poet, and who had been home-schooled by their Voodoo priestess neighbor.

Will also respected the artistic persona Rabbit consciously cultivated. She wore the uniform – berets, scarves, capes, politically-conscious tee-shirts, lots of black – and had, a few weeks into the term, chopped her waist-length, white-blonde hair off into a chin-length bob and dyed it dark purple to protest "traditional ideals of beauty." What he liked wasn't so much the persona (he preferred the easy-going girl he smoked cigarettes with to the dramatic "artiste") as it was Rabbit's awareness of working to _create_ the persona. In that way, she reminded Will of himself – and made him wonder if perhaps he wasn't as alone as he thought in trying to be someone he was not at Yale.

But, much as he enjoyed her company, Will wasn't interested in Rabbit romantically. His heart beat only for Maya. Thus he had been careful not to lead the girl on, never to respond to any of her flirtations or to behave like anything other than a friend with her; he didn't want to hurt her. Nonetheless, Will had allowed his friends to draw their own conclusions about he and Rabbit, ducking his head and producing the trademark Traveler grin with a "I'm-so-smitten-and-isn't-it-sweet" twist, whenever Kim or Nell (who lately seemed to be always at Tyler's side) mentioned Will and Rabbit potentially hooking up. Will let them believe that he had a crush on the sweet-natured painter because it was convenient for the mission: Letting his friends think he was already interested in someone prevented anyone – anyone, in this case, mostly being Kim – from trying to play matchmaker for him.

Will hadn't fully appreciated just what a Peyton's Place graduate school would prove to be at the start of his mission. With a bunch of twenty-somethings all desperately searching for "the one" as life after college began to stare them down, people seemed to pair up (and just as often fall apart) every couple of days. Not being in a relationship, and not appearing to be interested in developing one, would, Will feared, make him stand out like a sore thumb. Therefore, out of an abundance of operational caution, Will had decided to make pretending to entertain an innocent infatuation with a girl who was obviously not the type to marry a chemical engineer – Rabbit abhorred all things "chemical" or "corporate" – part of his cover.

Up to that evening, maintaining the fiction had been easy to separate from his actual friendship with Rabbit because everyone in their group, sensitive to Will's bashfulness, had refrained from any teasing or obvious speculation about the possibility of the two misfits "coupling up," as Tyler termed their clique's endless spate of romantic interludes. Only Kim and Nell spoke to him about it directly, and they would never have done so in front of anyone except Jay and Tyler – certainly never in front of Rabbit.

But leave it to Eddie Hahn, the resident prick, to go and muddy up the waters by forcing the two friends to acknowledge, even silently, what everyone assumed was happening between them – that they, the science nerd and the beautiful painter, were falling for each other.

Will really disliked Eddie Hahn, never more so than at that moment.

Rabbit seemed eager to change the subject, for which Will was thankful. "You anxious about your finals?" she asked, lighting up again as she stubbed out her old cigarette.

Will waved off her offer of another Marlboro – one was his limit or he started to feel nauseous. "Not really. I figure I either know the stuff by now or I deserve to fail. How 'bout you? That one professor still being so hard on your final project?"

Groaning, Rabbit eagerly latched onto the familiar topic of the art professor who appeared to have it out for her. "Oh my God, Will, she gets worse all the time. Do you know what she said in studio the other day, right in the middle of class?"

Will shook his head, enjoying Rabbit's dramatic way of telling even the simplest stories. "No, but I'm betting it wasn't that you're the next Picasso."

"She said," Rabbit sat up straight and fixed a snooty expression on her heart-shaped face, looking down her nose at Will while perfectly imitating the nasally voice of a blue-blood New England WASP, "Weeellll, can you honestly expect great art from someone named 'Rabbit'?"

Will burst out laughing. "No way. She actually said that?"

"Swear to Christ, and I have witnesses." Rabbit looked more amused than angry. One of the reasons Will liked her was that she took everything in stride. "She's a frigid old hag, she really is. I'd like to see her get laid between now and next Friday so she'd loosen up a little bit before she gives me a grade. Hell, at this point I'd _pay _someone to lay her. Interested?"

They shared a laugh over the prospect of Will acting the gigolo for the sake of Rabbit's GPA. But Rabbit's story had stirred up Will's curiosity about one aspect of her life that she had never discussed – her nickname.

Not wanting his own personal life probed, Will rarely inquired directly into others', instead leading them to share of their own accord as they came to like and trust him. Curiosity had been threatening to get the better of him in this instance, though, and finally, Will broke down and decided to risk a direct question.

"Feel free to tell me to mind my own business here, but why do people call you 'Rabbit,' anyway?"

Wordlessly, Rabbit stood and motioned for Will to follow her a short ways into the backyard, where a security light affixed to the side of the house cast a warm orange glow into the dark night. "This requires visuals," she explained, stepping into the circle of light and turning her back to Will.

As he watched, puzzled, she unbuttoned her coat and slipped it and her sweater off her right shoulder. "Come on, come closer," Rabbit instructed, glancing back at him. "See there, just below my collarbone in the back?"

Will leaned in close to examine her shoulder. There, on the snow-white skin, was a tiny brown birthmark shaped exactly like a rabbit in profile.

"Cool," he observed, running his finger over the mark. It felt no different from the rest of her skin; somehow, he had expected that it would.

"My mom thought so, too. So I've been 'Rabbit' since the day I was born. I don't know why she didn't just put it on my birth certificate – probably afraid I'd commit matricide when I got old enough because of all the schoolyard teasing."

Covering back up, Rabbit turned so she was facing Will. A second too late, he realized how close he was standing to her – they were practically nose to nose. Before he could back up, however, Rabbit had stretched up on her tip-toes and pressed her lips to his.

Will's body – which was, in all fairness, the body of a twenty-three-year-old male, and had in the past five months been brought to the edge of fulfillment with Maya only to be denied several times – responded immediately to the kiss. Rabbit was really very pretty, strangely-colored hair and Bohemian fashion sense aside; she was also very small, which Will had always found attractive, being on the short side himself; she tasted a little like mint and strawberries, a weirdly erotic combination; and she knew how to kiss in a sweet-hungry way that evoked a pleasant tightening in the pit of his stomach.

For the briefest instant, Will entertained the idea of kissing back. He even felt himself beginning to return the warm pressure of Rabbit's mouth.

Then Maya's face flashed across his mind.

It wasn't guilt that stopped Will. Or, more accurately, it wasn't the threat of the guilt he would feel the next time he stood before Maya knowing he had kissed another girl that stopped him.

Rather, it was love that caused Will to turn away, to step back, to deny his more base instincts, to triumph in the face of temptation.

Quite simply, Will was so madly in love with Maya that if it couldn't be her in his arms, he suddenly realized he just wasn't interested.

_Nobody compares to my girl._

Of course, now he had damage control to do for the sake of the mission.

"Look, Rabbit," Will started, racking his brain for a quick and easy lie to rescue him from this unwelcome development – which, Will scolded himself, if he had his head in the game instead of on Maya, he would have seen coming.

But Rabbit was smiling and shaking her head, as if to say, _No need._

"So what's her name?"

Will's breath caught in his throat. How could she possibly know…?

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The girl you're in love with, silly. What's her name?" Rabbit bumped his shoulder with hers, saying knowingly, "C'mon, Will, I'm not stupid. I see you daydreaming out the window with that little smile on your face. I was hoping it was me you were thinking about, but since it's not, I'm curious: Who is she?"

With Rabbit offering him the perfect out – Will could sense that her feelings would be spared if his rejection stemmed, as it actually did, from a great romance already in his life – he could hardly turn the opportunity down. But bringing Maya's name into the world of New Haven in even the most roundabout way greatly increased the risks for her, Will knew. He had the cloak of an assumed identity to protect him from the authorities after it was all said and done; Will Traveler didn't exist, after all. On the other hand, Maya Sanders, were she ever to be connected to whatever crime he ended up framing Jay and Tyler for, would have no such protection. Better for her, safer for her, that no one in New Haven knew anything about Will's connections to real people in Deer Harbor.

Thus Will knew he had to be very, very clever with the lie he was about to tell, the hastily-concocted half-truth that, he hoped, would appease Rabbit's romantic nature without pointing unwelcome eyes in Maya's direction.

"A girl from my hometown," Will answered slowly, for once letting his adoration of Maya play across his features without trying to mask how deeply, passionately, completely in love he was. He knew that would sell Rabbit on his story even though he wasn't going to tell the truth about the love of his life.

"Please, go on," Rabbit pressed, obviously intrigued. "I've never heard you mention her before."

"Well, things are complicated between us at the moment. I mean, it's not like I've been hiding a girlfriend or anything," Will was quick to explain. He couldn't afford to have his integrity brought under suspicion; he couldn't insinuate that his life, his past, in Deer Harbor was anything other than an open book, or he would be inviting the kind of scrutiny every undercover operative dreaded. It was human nature to scent out a secret and go after it, so his story had to make plain to Rabbit that Will Traveler had no secrets.

"She and I were together all the way through high school, but then I left for college and she thought we should take a break, so…We sort of got back together after my dad died, and it's been this on-again, off-again thing ever since then.

"I really love her," Will concluded soulfully, bringing his eyes up to meet Rabbit's, who looked genuinely sympathetic. "But there's a lot of history there, a lot of…stuff to figure out, I guess I could say."

_You know, like she doesn't know my real name. Or that I killed her brother. Or that I'm actually a spy for the American government, part of a top-secret program that technically isn't supposed to exist, if we're going by the Bill of Rights._

Rabbit sighed and touched a gloved hand to Will's cheek. "Lucky girl," she remarked with a wistful smile. "I hope she knows what she's got."

Such a comment coming on the heels of Will's dark musings about everything Maya didn't – and couldn't – know about him served as a much-needed balm to his soul. Offering Rabbit a grateful smile, he sealed Maya's safety with an earnest request: "Listen, would you mind not telling anybody about this? I just know Kim tells Jay everything, and I really don't want the guys teasing me about it."

"Of course," Rabbit agreed without hesitation. Will believed that she would keep her word: He had spent enough time with liars to recognize an honest face when he saw one.

"So…we okay?" Will regarded Rabbit hopefully. It would be nice, he thought, if they could go on being friends without too much awkwardness between them, although the fiction of their infatuation could obviously no longer be part of his cover.

Grinning, Rabbit slipped her arm through his and led him back toward the house. "Will, my darling boy," she responded, invoking her pet name for him, "we are fabulous. Don't you know that the secret to great art is heartbreak?" She tapped a finger playfully to her chin, declaring with exaggerated gravity, "In fact, I think I'll title my next piece, 'Ode to a Traveler.' Maybe I'll even sign it in my own blood…"

Laughing, relieved at her good-humored approach to his rejection, Will kidded her back, "Just don't go slicing off any ears over me, Van Gogh. I'm not worth that."

Rabbit paused with her hand on the back door and regarded Will seriously for a moment. "Let's just be clear here, okay? If Miss Maine lets you go, you better believe I'm still gonna be here," she informed him simply, bluntly. "Because you are worth it, Will."

Before he could answer, Rabbit had stepped into the warm, crowded kitchen, where everyone was grabbing coats and preparing to head out on their long-waited excursion. Will supposed he should have been concerned by the intimation that Rabbit still had designs on him; instead, with Kim grabbing his wrist and pulling him out the door to Tyler's SUV, he felt calm and almost sunny inside, still barely able to believe that interesting, good-hearted people like Rabbit, Kim, Jay and Tyler would so completely accept him into their lives.

It was the most at home Will could remember feeling in a very long time.

True to her silly and vivacious nature, Rabbit had put together a mix-tape for the drive across campus to the med school dorms. They rode with the windows down (it was surprisingly warm inside the car with a dozen bodies crammed into it), the theme from "Mission: Impossible" blasting out of the speakers. Will, sandwiched in the back between Jay and Eddie, had to admit that, weirdness with Rabbit aside and the knowledge of his continuing betrayal notwithstanding, the evening was turning out to be more fun than he'd ever had with friends.

Excepting when he was with Maya, of course. But Will considered anything to do with Maya as existing on a special plane far removed from ordinary life.

Not everyone seemed to share his enthusiasm, however. "Worried?" Will inquired of Jay, noting that his roommate had been rather quiet all evening.

Throughout all of their scheming, Jay had been the most contentious when it came to ensuring that they wouldn't be doing anything criminal or running terribly far afoul of the student conduct code. Now that the moment of truth was upon them, Will wondered if his friend was having second thoughts about going through with the prank at all.

Jay shrugged. Quietly, so Eddie, who was sitting on Will's other side, couldn't hear, he replied, "Just watch yourself, okay? Sometimes these jokes get a little…nasty."

Will smiled to himself. So that's what it was – Jay and Tyler tended to think of Will as needing protection, given that he was about half their size. He supposed his manly ego should have been damaged by the concern. Instead, he sort of liked having two "big brothers" watching out for him.

_Two big brothers I'm serving up on a silver platter to a bunch of greedy, merciless old men…_

Will ordered himself to stop entertaining such thoughts. He had made his choice: He was keeping to his vows, holding to the mission. Torturing himself over it at every opportunity did nobody any good – it only stood to make him sloppy, which could hurt them all.

Tyler parked down the block from the first-year med students' dorm. They quietly exited the vehicle and crept, en masse, to the large sycamore tree growing several yards from the dorm's front porch. The fire hydrant stood just a few feet away, near the sidewalk. Wordlessly, Tyler motioned for Jay and Will to take their teams on to the dorm while his team connected the coiled-up fire-hose (which it had taken both Tyler and Marco together to carry from the SUV, it was so heavy) to the hydrant.

"Good luck," Nell whispered after them, kneeling beside Tyler on the ground.

Will and Jay's teams snuck toward the darkened building. It was after two in the morning, and with the pressure of final exams on for the following week, it appeared that their group had been right in assuming the med students would make an early night of it before the cramming began in earnest that weekend.

Before they parted, Jay muttered to Will, "You get the feeling Nell's gonna help Tyler celebrate later whether we pull this thing off or not?"

Will snickered. "That's one way of putting it, yeah."

He was happy for Tyler, Will decided. Nell was beautiful and feisty and cool, plus she seemed much more interested in Tyler as a person than she was in his money, which Will couldn't have said for the majority of the dates Tyler had taken out that semester. Being madly in love himself, Will found that he looked on other's romances with a kinder eye than he had before meeting Maya. Daniel Taft would have assumed Nell, a Kansas wheat farmer's daughter, had an ulterior motive for dating Tyler, even if she was clever enough to hide it; Will Traveler gave her the benefit of the doubt and believed that she genuinely liked his friend.

Jay, Kim, Isaac and Reggie stopped off at the dorm's side door, which was supposed to be locked at all times but, Jones' recon (yes, they had actually reconnoitered the prank, which amused Will to no end) had uncovered, was left propped in case someone forgot their key and came home late from the lab. After handing off a half-dozen stink bombs to them, Will and Eddie continued on around the back of the building to the fire exit. That door was locked; for their purposes, however, Will and Eddie didn't actually need access to the building. They could detonate their stink bombs on the ground right outside the door. The stench would definitely deter anyone from trying that escape route, even if they became aware of the water-attack awaiting them out front.

Like shooting rats in a barrel. Only, for once, Will was able to relax and enjoy the set-up because no one was actually going to be hurt.

Or so he thought, until he dropped his backpack on the cement outside the back door, reached into it for the stink-ampoule, and was suddenly seized roughly from behind and shoved into the wall.

Instinct kicked in. One arm bent up painfully behind his back, his face pressed hard into the scratchy brick of the outer wall, Will jerked his free elbow up and backward, delivering a vicious blow to his attacker's diaphragm.

The breath left Eddie in a gush. He groaned as he released Will, who immediately pivoted on the spot, fists up and ready for a fight.

He found himself facing a half-dozen startled-looking med students – and one gagging, gasping Eddie.

"Jesus," Eddie rasped out, clutching his gut. "What the fuck are you, a Navy Seal?"

Understanding slowly dawned on Will. They had been betrayed, betrayed by Eddie Hahn, the beer-bellied, fuzzy-haired, squinty-eyed little shit.

Will glared fiercely at the traitor. He had never liked Eddie, with his slick lines and kiss-ass attitude. Of all the people Tyler had brought around that year, Eddie had struck Will from the beginning as the most dangerous kind of hanger-on, a man who, like Will in his real life, had spent enough time on the periphery of power and money to be desperate for a piece of the pie himself.

"Serves you right for selling us out," Will retorted, feeling no sympathy at all for Eddie's pain. He realized, however, that he could not fight his way out of this situation. For one thing, as Eddie had just observed, Will Traveler was not supposed to be a deadly combatant; he was a fairly small guy, after all, and, daily running regimen aside, he would probably arouse some suspicions if he managed to beat down five beefy guys (two of the assembled med students were women).

For another, Will recognized that he wasn't in any real danger here. He and his friends had planned a harmless prank; apparently, Eddie had gone to the other side and offered to help them orchestrate an even cleverer prank in return. About the most he had to fear, Will saw, was humiliation, which wasn't pleasant but certainly didn't justify him utilizing his military-style training to attack a bunch of innocent civilians.

So, he submitted for the moment. Later, Will decided, he would find a way to stick it to Eddie Hahn.

The med students advanced on him warily. Will held up his hands to show he didn't intend to fight. "He just scared me, that's all," Will told them, glancing at the recovering Eddie. "I thought I was being mugged or something."

"His face is bleeding," one of the girls observed, frowning with concern at Will. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Will shook his head, fingering the scrape on his cheek where the brick wall had torn away his hide. "I'm fine. It's just a scratch."

"Be easy with him," the same girl ordered her friends, as Will was taken by the arms and marched across the back lawn to a deep pool of shadows cast by a stand of tall sycamores.

A skinny, blond young man wearing glasses explained to Will, who placidly allowed himself to be stripped down to his boxers, that the med students' retaliation involved tying Will to a "cross" (they had nailed together two two-by-fours in the shape of an X, Will spotted the boards lying beside one of the trees) and hoisting him up in the quad for his friends to find. Eddie was going to run back to them before they could detonate the stink bombs – hooking up the fire-hose, the fire chief had told Kim and Nell, would take untrained individuals about ten minutes, so Jay and Will had been instructed to hold off detonation for fifteen – with the news that they had been caught and that Will had been taken captive. Then when Will's friends hurried into the quad to "rescue" him, they would find themselves facing a dozen-strong force of med students lying in wait, armed with paint-ball guns.

"Not a bad ruse, huh, Traveler?" Eddie said to Will, smirking cruelly.

Beginning to shiver in the frigid night air, Will freed his arm long enough to flip Eddie off before he was laid out on the make-shift cross and tied to it, a thick rope binding his wrists and ankles.

"Don't hurt him," one of the girls admonished sharply, when Will winced from a splinter piercing his calf. In all honesty, the med students were being very gentle with him. He winked at the girl to let her know he was all right.

"Do you think it's too cold for him to be exposed, even for a few minutes?" someone else asked, sounding concerned.

Gooseflesh standing out all over him and teeth chattering, Will requested, "A blanket would be nice until you get me to the quad, or somebody's coat, maybe…"

"Here." Somebody produced a heavy coat and draped it over Will's midsection, shielding him from the bitter wind at least.

"Dude, what if he gets frostbite or something?"

"Man, do you feel like you're getting frostbite?" This was directed at Will by the blond youth with the glasses, who appeared to be somewhat of the group's leader.

Will laughed, finding that being taken hostage was actually kind of fun so long as his life wasn't in danger. He felt again the sense of belonging, almost flattered that Eddie had decided Will was important enough to warrant a rescue mission from the others, quite touched that his captors were so interested in his comfort and well-being.

"You're the doctors," Will shot back good-naturedly. "You tell me, am I gonna get frostbite?"

Everybody chuckled at that. Will stared up at the night sky as the four male med students hefted the pseudo-cross onto their shoulders and began carrying him toward the quad, the girls walking alongside him and draping more coats over him to protect him from the cold.

"He's cute," Will heard one of them whisper.

_Wait 'til I tell Maya about this – she'll laugh her head off at me, bad-ass super-spy, being carted off in my underwear by a bunch of first-year med students…_

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a blast of water hit one of the students carrying Will. Yelping, the target tried to turn away, but in an instant, water balloons were pelting their small group from seemingly every direction. Tied to the board, Will could do nothing except close his eyes as the balloons exploded around him, never directly hitting him yet spraying him with water nonetheless.

His captors lowered him hastily (but gently) to the ground and raced back toward the dorm. They were intercepted, however, by balloon-wielding Jones and Marco, both of whom looked like they meant business.

Jay and Tyler knelt down beside Will, their faces split by ear-to-ear grins. "How'd you guys find out what was happening?" Will demanded, his lips trembling from the cold, as his roommates worked quickly to free his hands and feet.

"Jones," Tyler answered simply. "She was doing recon on the side door of the dorm last week, seeing if it was always left unlocked or just sometimes, and she spotted our little Judas Iscariot over there selling us out to Dawson." He jerked his chin toward the bespectacled blond Will had correctly assumed to be the med students' leader in the prank.

"So you knew this was going to happen and you didn't warn me?" Will was shivering so hard he had difficulty standing. Jay stripped off his coat and draped it around Will's shoulders, just as Kim, panting, ran up with Will's clothes, which she had retrieved from the stand of trees.

"Thanks," Will said to her, slipping his jeans and sweater back on.

"Sorry, man," Jay apologized, clapping Will on the shoulder. "But you gotta admit, you're not exactly the world's best liar – we were afraid if we told you, you'd give something away to Eddie, and then we wouldn't be able to take our revenge."

Guilt pierced Will like a hot poker. Not the world's best liar? If only they knew…

_Well, the point is, they don't, and you should be glad of it._

"So what now?"

Dressed again, Will was warming up fast and looking to make Eddie suffer for his betrayal. The med students had obviously been tipped off about the stink bombs, so Will had come to the conclusion that for a week, since Jones had discovered Eddie's treachery, the plan had not actually been to attack the dorm after all.

As it turned out, his friends had a rather ingenuous plan in reserve, one concocted in secret once they had learned of Eddie's betrayal. First, they stripped Eddie down to his tee-shirt, boxers and socks (Will compassionately argued for leaving him some clothes, knowing only too well how cold the night air was) and bound him to the cross that had been intended for Will; Isaac, Reggie, Vincent and Marco shouldered the two-by-fours and quietly carried their captive off toward the quad. Meanwhile, Jay, Tyler, Kim and Will, followed by Jones, who marched their six hostages forward, stole around the backs of the second- and third-year med students' dorms to the edge of the quadrangle, where Nell, Rabbit, Penelope and Cassidy had finished rigging the fire-hose up to a hydrant there.

"Brilliant," Will noted, sincerely impressed by his friends' ingenuity. "They're never gonna see this comin', are they?"

"Nope," Jay answered with a grin. He looked so relaxed now that Will suddenly understood what Jay's trepidation had been in the SUV: He had been worried, Will realized, that Will would be upset by being used as bait, that he would be hurt that his friends had kept him out of the loop about the change of plan.

The irony of it all, the tragedy of betraying his friends to their absolute ruin while they worried over fibbing to him about a meaningless prank, all at once hit Will like a fist to the gut.

He hung back as his friends rushed forward, all of them together working to control the fire-hose as dozens of pounds of water pressure shot through the line toward the unsuspecting med students, who were waiting for their signal to emerge from hiding with their paint-ball guns and never saw the surprise attack coming. He did not join in the fun as the quad transformed into a screaming, giggling, running and slipping mess of bodies, the med students trying to avoid the barely-controlled stream of water spewing from the hose and the law students trying to duck the few rounds of paint-balls their opponents were able to squeeze off before beating a retreat back to their dorm.

All enjoyment of the evening lost to him, Will stayed to one side as Eddie Hahn's cross was erected in the center of the quad, the word "traitor" written across his forehead in Rabbit's red lipstick. He didn't respond when Rabbit flashed him the thumbs-up sign and, gleeful over their victory, shouted, "You have been avenged, darling boy!"

He couldn't even crack a smile as Tyler, patting Eddie's bare leg, quipped, "Don't worry, Eddie, we'll call your pals over at the med school and tell 'em where you are – they should have you down in no time."

"Smile, Eddie," Kim cried, snapping a photo of the trussed-up traitor. "You know that one's going in the school paper," she added, turning to Will, who forced a bright smile onto his face.

But Kim wasn't fooled. "You okay?" she inquired, brushing a lock of damp hair off his forehead. "You got quiet all of a sudden – oh, Will, honey, your face, it's all scratched up – "

For once, Will shrugged away from Kim's touch, though normally he soaked up her sisterly attentions. "I'm fine, Kim. Just cold," he replied stiffly, trying and failing to achieve a normal tone.

It was the truth: Will was cold. So desperately, profoundly cold he felt dead, corpse-like – but not from being nearly naked in the frigid December night. The ice seeping through his veins had nothing to do with his physical discomfort.

It had everything to do with the sudden, undeniable recognition that what he was doing to Jay and Tyler was _wrong. _

Betraying his friends was wrong. Lying to them was wrong. Framing people for crimes they hadn't committed, whether they were truly innocent like Jay and Tyler or only partially innocent like Austin, was _wrong. _No matter what the ends were, how could the Partners possibly justify those means?

How could he, Will, justify helping them to accomplish those ends?

Right then and there, Will Traveler almost walked away. He almost chucked it all in, almost grabbed Jay and Tyler by their elbows and marched them off into a private corner to tell them the whole sordid tale, to explain to them that they would have to look out for themselves now because he had to run, run like hell, to collect Maya and disappear before the Partners learned what he had done. He almost let it all, duty and honor and safety, go just to tell his friends to their faces that even if it cost him everything, his very life, he couldn't stand to be the reason they lost their bright futures.

Later, Will would wonder whether or not he would have found the courage to act on his conviction if the cell phone in his pocket had not vibrated to life at that moment.

His heart skidded to a halt behind his ribs. Could the Partners possibly be able to read his mind now? Had some sixth sense told Joseph to call his operative right then before he blew the whole operation?

_Don't be stupid. Whatever is wrong, whatever necessitates a three a.m. phone call, it's not because Hometown has telepaths on its payroll. _

"'Scuse me," he said to Kim, stepping back from her with the phone already in his palm.

She nodded, looking perplexed by his strange behavior but willing to let it go. As Will walked a short distance away to gain some privacy, she called, "Don't go far, okay? As soon as we make sure they cut Eddie down, we're going to the IHOP for a celebratory breakfast."

Will waved to show he understood, though food was the last thing on his mind. Flipping open the phone, he said coolly, "Hello?"

"Daniel?"

Having nearly stopped seconds before, Will's heart suddenly lurched forward. "Sela?" he said incredulously. "What's wrong? Is Joseph all right?"

But even as he asked it, Will knew what had happened. Knew what the Partners had done. Knew it with a certainty that turned his blood from ice to fire, changed his cold horror to burning fury in the space of a breath.

_Darian._

"Daniel, I know it's really late and you're probably so busy, but Joseph asked me to call you. We need you to come here, sweetie," Sela said, her voice choking on a sob. "I'm-I'm so sorry to tell you this over the phone, Daniel…I don't know how to say this…"

_No. No, don't say it – if you don't say it, it's not true, it didn't happen – surely they wouldn't, just a kid – _

"Daniel, it's-it's Darian."

Will closed his eyes, trying to steel himself against Sela's next words, knowing he couldn't, waiting for them to penetrate his heart like a dagger.

"She's dead."

_Author's Note: Please don't worry, I promise Will won't ever be unfaithful to Maya – it wouldn't make sense with the show or his character. But I did want to run a little bit with the idea of Will leading this whole other life at Yale – one he likes and where he is liked in return, and one that Maya can't be a part of. Anyway, I promise Rabbit/Will is not even a remote possibility (this is Will and Maya's story), so don't kill me for letting him be tempted just this once!_


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13:**

"**Eyes Wide Open"**

Suicide, Sela said. Slit her wrists in the bathtub. Did it properly, deep vertical cuts that sliced through the arteries, after a few false-starts that barely broke the skin. Bled out into the warm water while her parents cheered Sam on at his junior high school's state championship football game. Had been dead over two hours when they arrived home, still celebrating the team's victory.

Sela had made the gruesome discovery.

No note. No explanation. Just a bloody corpse, left to speak for itself.

The police, Will knew, would be unconcerned by these missing details: The girl had covered her floor in black felt and drawn a pentagram on her closet door, for Christ's sake – not to mention the trouble at school, the smoking, the cutting class. Somebody might as well have painted "teenage suicide" on her forehead, for that would be the official conclusion, Will didn't doubt it for a second.

But Will knew better: Darian Langdon had been murdered to protect the Partners' secrets.

A necessary sacrifice for the greater good. A nasty, unpleasant deed to be done quickly, quietly, by some nameless, faceless assassin – in all likelihood a Hometown agent just like Will had been at nineteen, before he earned his chance at undercover work – and never spoken of again. Darian wasn't a victim or a statistic or a human being even, not to the Partners. To them, she was collateral damage.

Not to Will.

He only hoped Darian had been dead, or at least unconscious, before she was cut. He had to believe they wouldn't have made her suffer, or he thought he might go mad.

Somehow, after ending the phone call with Sela by promising to head immediately for Staten Island, Will managed to compartmentalize his emotions (fury, grief, guilt, despair) long enough to accompany his exuberant friends on the short drive to the International House of Pancakes, traditional late-night hot-spot of college students everywhere. They had no more than slid into their booth, though, when Will – who knew he was pale enough to pull off the lie – claimed to be feeling ill and announced that he was taking a taxi back to the Castle.

"No way," Tyler argued, starting out of the booth after him. "I'll drive you."

Will held up a hand, asking Tyler with his eyes not to make a fuss. "I'm okay," he assured his friend quietly. "Stay here and have fun. I just got too cold out there, I think."

Jay followed his roommates to the front door, where the trio huddled to speak out of the others' hearing range. He, too, was frowning with concern.

"Will, you don't look so good," Jay protested. "Are you sure they didn't rough you up or something? Maybe bang your head around, on accident, even?"

For once, his friends' kindness was precisely what Will did not want. He wanted to hurry back to the Castle, pack a bag, call John Ellington to demand a convincing cover story be created for why he was leaving New Haven just before finals, then rent a car and head for New York. Fallbrook Dunn was responsible for handling major catastrophes in Hometown, after all. Will considered Darian Langdon's death catastrophic, so Hometown could deal with his operation for a couple of days while he dealt with the fallout from their latest murder.

And when he reached New York? Well, Will was prepared to do whatever Joseph wanted to do to avenge Darian's death. If his handler wanted to take out the whole organization, Will decided, overpowering fury coursing through his veins so that he balled his fists at his sides in an effort to contain the rage, they would find a supplier, buy the weapons and go to war. If Joseph wanted a subtler approach, Will could do that, too – he could pick the sons of bitches who had been involved in Darian's murder off one by one, should that be her father's wishes.

Of course, going rogue would mean Will would have to get Maya to safety first. Once he started offing Hometown operatives – possibly even Partners, if Joseph knew who they were, or if their identities could be discerned some other way – Will understood that he would have to disappear, completely and forever, and he had no intention of leaving Maya behind. But the details (like what to do about the fact that Hometown controlled almost every penny of Will's earnings from the past four years, a nice little trick for keeping agents trained in becoming ghosts on a short leash) could be worked out later. The important thing, the most pressing thing, was for him to reach New York, and fast, as Joseph had requested.

Will couldn't accomplish any of that with Jay and Tyler dogging his steps.

Drawing in a deep, calming breath, Will tried to force a little color back into his cheeks. "Really, guys, I'm okay," he insisted, unable to smooth all of the irritation out of his voice. "I just don't feel well, and I want to go home and lie down."

"Do you think it's wise to head home by yourself when you just got sick all of a sudden?" Jay pressed, in his classic, lawyer-like, please-just-listen-to-reason voice.

Will's temper snapped. It required all of his self-control not to actually stomp his foot in frustration. "For fuck's sake, can we stop making a big deal out of this, please? I know you guys all enjoy treating me like your pet, but I'm really not a child, in case you hadn't noticed."

Jay held up his hands, obviously surprised and hurt by this inexplicable display of anger, a side of Will his roommates had never seen before. "Sorry," he returned, a bit sharply. "I don't think anybody's saying you can't look out for yourself here. We're just worried about you, Will."

_You wanna go, Jay? Let's step outside and see who ends up being tougher – I bet I know some moves the ROTC didn't teach you…_

_Calm down. It's not Jay you're angry with, and you know it._

In his heart, Will wasn't really angry with his roommates. He was, despite the frustration they were causing him, touched by their concern. Along with feeling a bit ashamed of how he had just spoken to his friends, Will also knew that he had to bring his emotions under control before he unraveled the months of hard-earned trust and affection between them.

_The mission – does it even matter anymore?_

Will was simply too well-trained to act impulsively, however. He fully expected that once he reached Staten Island, everything about his life would change: He would become an enemy of the very organization he had sworn to die protecting. What Jay and Tyler thought of him then wouldn't matter, because Will Traveler would never set foot in New Haven, or in their lives, again.

But Will also understood the importance of planning for contingencies. Until his operation was officially ended, until he actually stopped working for Hometown, he knew that the wisest play was for him to protect the integrity of his mission.

Will sighed, feeling weary and sounding it, sick to death of balancing all the balls he had to keep in the air just to stay alive in this complicated world of his. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap. I know you guys are just worried," he said, the apology sincere. "It's just…"

Jay and Tyler exchanged a worried look that said, _We were afraid of this. _

Will shut up immediately. His spy-senses told him that, just as Rabbit had offered him an out from their awkward encounter earlier, if he let them, Jay and Tyler might serve up a plausible explanation for his sudden illness without Will having to say a word.

"Will," Tyler said slowly, looking so uncomfortable Will knew they were about to venture into emotional territory usually avoided by all males aged twelve to ninety, "is this, uh, is this something to do with your friend? The one who passed away a few weeks ago?"

Understanding dawned on Will. Yes, here was an out. The fire-drill hoax was supposedly based on a prank Will Traveler and his buddies had played their senior year, so it was only natural, he supposed, that repeating the trick would remind him of a childhood friend recently departed.

He just needed to pull himself together enough to weave yet another convenient lie, and he could be on his way to New York, to Joseph, to Sela and Sam.

_Ready – set – go…_

"Maybe," Will hedged, as if he would prefer not to think too deeply on the subject. "I don't know…This-this prank tonight, I guess maybe it did kind of get to me. Brought up some memories of how we all were in high school, you know…"

Tyler punched Jay's shoulder lightly. "Told you," he muttered.

"Will, we're sorry," Jay said, ignoring Tyler and his morally-superior tone. "We thought about that when you came back from Maine, but…Well, you just seemed like you really wanted to do this, so we didn't want to say anything. We didn't mean to be insensitive," he added quickly, as if Jay Burchell had ever been inconsiderate of another person's feelings a day in his life.

"It's okay." Will took a tentative step toward the door; when neither of his roommates made to follow him, he knew he was in the clear. "I just need to be alone for a while, all right? And I really do feel kind of sick," he tacked on, to ensure that they wouldn't try to persuade him to stick around, to let himself be cheered by their group's camaraderie. "I really think I got too cold out there – my chest sort of hurts, I don't know, like I'm getting bronchitis or something."

_Or like my heart's been ripped out and mangled._

"If you're sure," Jay agreed reluctantly, his dark eyes indicating that he wasn't entirely comfortable with letting Will head off by himself while ill and upset.

Tyler, though he appeared equally worried for Will, also seemed more understanding of the need to be alone to deal with grief and sorrow. "He'll be okay, Jay," Tyler declared firmly. To Will, he instructed, "You call us if you need anything, or, you know, just want us to come home, okay? I'll keep my cell on all night."

It struck Will suddenly that this could very well be the last time he would ever see his roommates. The revelation tore at his already-tattered heart: How to say goodbye without actually saying goodbye? How to walk away knowing that when he didn't return from New York, the jig would be up – Jay and Tyler would face the painful truth that their friendship had all been a lie?

Or would they? Will doubted the Partners would allow even a major mishap like the defection of their undercover operative to derail this mission completely; for whatever reason, framing Jay and Tyler was too important for them to simply abort the operation. Most likely they would fabricate a story involving Will Traveler's untimely demise to explain his disappearance, and shortly thereafter, another Hometown agent would find an angle from which to penetrate his unsuspecting friends' grief-stricken lives.

For the second time that night, Will seriously weighed the option of blowing his cover wide open and confessing everything to Jay and Tyler. If he did that now, though, Will realized that he couldn't predict or control their reactions. If they did or said anything to tip off the Partners to Will's betrayal, he might not have time to reach Joseph in New York or to arrange Maya's escape before the wrath of Hometown descended on him.

No, Will decided, better to maintain the status quo for now, to figure out his next move before putting himself at such risk. Better not to burn any bridges, as his father would have said.

Once he and Maya were safe, Will consoled himself, he would find a way to contact Jay and Tyler, to warn them. A sense of elation swept through Will, momentarily lifting him above his despair over Darian: He wouldn't have to betray his friends after all; he wouldn't have to condemn them, he could in fact be the one to save them.

Knowing that made walking away easier, if not easy.

Will also decided that his "grieving friend" status gave him some latitude in the showing-of-affection department. Not wanting to alarm his roommates further, Will nevertheless dropped his guard enough to pull each one of them into a quick, brotherly hug before he turned to go, to walk out of their lives forever.

To Will's surprise, neither of his roommates seemed to find this gesture over-the-top or out of place. Jay hugged him back – briefly, of course, they were still guys – and said, "Take care of yourself, okay?"

And Tyler hugged Will just as tightly, admonishing, "Don't drink all the beer in the house without us."

_They really are my friends. They really do care about me. _

On the edge of goodbye, Will finally accepted that fact completely. Just like he accepted that walking away was probably the best means he had for showing his love for them in return.

Within the hour, Will was driving a rented Lincoln Navigator north along I-95, speeding through the predawn hours toward New York. He had phoned John Ellington's emergency number while he packed; having anticipated an argument over abandoning his post so abruptly, Will had been caught off-guard by Ellington's nonplussed response.

"Yes, we're aware of the situation, and we're prepared to handle it," he had informed Will crisply. "Leave a note for your roommates explaining that a water treatment plant outside of Augusta has been contaminated by an oil leak at a local refinery, and that your professors from Bates have requested that you join them to help clean up the mess without allowing it to cause any serious environmental impact. The necessary deceptions will be put in place for your roommates and the faculty at Yale."

Will, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, had nonetheless challenged, "Isn't it going to be a little odd for me to cut out of town in the middle of the night for what basically amounts to a field trip?"

"As I understand it, Mr. Traveler," Ellington had replied smoothly, "your roommates are out celebrating and shouldn't be back to the house until well after dawn, if the nightclub Mr. Fog just took them to lives up to its reputation. They shouldn't have any idea whether you left at three-thirty or seven-thirty."

A chill had skated down Will's spine as he hung up, though he had wisely indicated no discomfiture at the revelation that his roommates – and thereby Will himself, if only be extension – were under Hometown surveillance. Gulping down coffee as the miles fell away behind him, Will couldn't stop asking himself if the surveillance was simply a reaction to current circumstances – Joseph had, after all, requested Will's presence in New York, and it made sense that to facilitate his sudden departure Hometown would need to assess the situation in New Haven – or if they were being monitored regularly.

If the latter were true, Will wondered, why would the Partners find it necessary to keep tabs on him and his targets when, to Will's knowledge, they had never done so on his past operations? Did they know about his relationship with Maya? Were they still concerned that he might seek revenge on Carlton Fog through Tyler? Had they suspected all along that Daniel Taft wasn't cut out for this sort of assignment and were consequently covering their bases?

Sometime around five o'clock that morning, Will's tired brain finally dredged up the warning Joseph had given him on the day he requested the New Haven assignment: The Partners would be watching closely, he had said.

Will relaxed, feeling a good measure (though admittedly not all) of the tension his conversation with Ellington had created leak out of his limbs. He wouldn't dismiss the possibility that the Partners were having second thoughts about his ability to complete the mission, as well they should have been, but Will felt much calmer knowing that in all probability the surveillance had nothing to do with him per se. It was merely another manifestation of the Partners' paranoia.

That meant Will was still safe, that he still had a good chance of being able to meet with Joseph, plot their counterattack, and whisk Sela, Sam and Maya off to safety without the Partners putting a bullet in his head the moment he stepped out of the car in New York.

Will told himself to get used to looking over his shoulder. Once he went off the reservation, he would be on the run forever. Thinking of the letters he had written Maya, Will experienced a rush of remorse for the life he would not be able to give her now. But he knew in his gut that Maya would both understand and approve of his choice. The Langdons, as Will had told Darian, were the closest thing he had to a family; he had joined Hometown to avenge his father, and he would turn on it with fury now to avenge his handler's daughter.

_Everything will be different now. Everything. But it's right, I can feel it – I should have walked away ages ago…_

When Will reached Staten Island, everything did change. Only, not as he had expected it would.

Will parked the rented Lincoln on the street because the Langdons' driveway was full – relatives and friends, Will was sure, had been arriving all night from across the country to be with Joseph and Sela in their loss. The rest of the neighborhoods' affluent residents were still asleep; it was barely six o'clock, and the sun had yet to penetrate the winter morning's icy darkness. Glad for the solitude because it gave him a moment to collect his thoughts, Will stood for a little while beside the car, staring up at Darian's darkened bedroom window.

He had to be strong now. He would grieve later. For now, he had to be clear, focused, sharp.

He also had to be Daniel Taft, not Will Traveler. He had to put on a front for the guests, any one of whom could be working for Hometown. Having murdered Joseph's daughter, Will was certain the Partners would have his handler under close scrutiny for any signs of disloyalty; Will would have to wait to talk to Joseph alone, away from prying eyes and probing ears, to learn what their revenge would be.

Thus for the moment he was Daniel Taft, junior associate with Fallbrook Dunn, friend of the family. He had even dressed the part, donning his Seven jeans and a charcoal button-down and a brown Versace leather coat, trading in Will Traveler's black backpack for Daniel's Coach satchel.

_Ready – set – go…_

Sela, eyes red and swollen from crying, opened the door and immediately fell into Will's arms. The force of her grief reminded him painfully of Maya's similar wordless reaction to the news of her brother's death. Kicking the door shut against the winter chill, Will gathered Sela close, trying to pass some of his strength to her. She would need to be strong, he knew, once they went on the run, and right now she looked anything but.

"I'm sorry, Sela," he whispered into her hair, wishing he could convey just how much.

Sela stepped back, shoulders shaking but eyes dry, the worst of the breakdown seemingly behind her. "Daniel – oh," she interrupted herself with a small cry, reaching out to touch the tear-stained front of his leather coat. "Oh, Daniel, how silly of me – I'm so sorry."

She produced a tissue from the pocket of her jeans – Will had a feeling Sela had not been to bed that night, and was probably still wearing the clothes she had worn to Sam's football game – and began to blot at the stains. Will caught her fingers gently in his and smiled to show her that it was all right. "Please don't worry about it, Sela," he said kindly, squeezing her hand in his. "It's not important."

Will understood the need to focus on the details. After his father's death, the details were all that had pushed Will forward: the phone calls that needed to be made, the arrangements that needed to be decided, the finances that needed to be discussed. He sympathized with Sela's fixation on a little thing like damp spots on a leather coat, but at the moment, he needed her to focus on a different detail – taking him to Joseph.

"Where's Sam?" Will asked, as Sela led him down the hall toward Joseph's study. People he didn't recognize were milling around throughout the house, talking in low, serious voices; Will noted a few maids wandering amongst the rooms, refilling coffee cups and offering trays of pastries. Some of the visitors Will knew had to be relatives, because the family resemblance was strong on both Sela and Joseph's sides, yet he couldn't help wondering how many of them were just like him – not at all who they were pretending to be.

"We sent Sam next door to the McCulloughs' for the night," Sela was explaining when Will turned his attention back to her. "I knew he wouldn't get any sleep with-with…well, with everything, and with everybody coming and going."

Will placed a comforting hand on Sela's shoulder. "I'll go check on him later, if you like."

"Thank you, Daniel." Sela paused with her hand poised to tap on Joseph's door, a startled look crossing her face. "Oh, good Lord, I just realized, with everybody here, we don't have a spare bed to put you in!"

Always the hostess, Will thought fondly.

"Don't worry about it. I'll get a hotel."

"There's a nice one out by those little art galleries near the high school. Not one of those awful chain places, a real little boutique hotel. The Mayflower, I think it's called. I'll call and make a reservation for you."

"Please don't go to any trouble, Sela," Will protested. "I can call them."

"No, no, it's the least I can do." Sela pulled Will into another tight hug, resting her cheek against his. "I'm so grateful you came, Daniel. It means so much to have you here."

Will returned the hug, surprised in spite of himself by Sela's sudden display of affection. He realized she was facing every parent's worst nightmare. Nonetheless, he had never known cool, sophisticated Sela to be quite so demonstrative.

He certainly wasn't prepared for her to press her lips against his ear and whisper, "When you get to the hotel tonight, wait for me. I may be late, but I'll be there."

Covering the message by kissing the side of Will's head and then his cheek in a very motherly fashion, Sela released him. He stared at her back, his mind spinning, as she knocked on the door.

Sela wanted a meet. This was not, Will would have staked his life on it, some weird, grief-induced sexual rendezvous they were talking about – this was a _meet, _a plotting-against-the-powers meet. And she had been clever enough to convey her terms without seeming to say anything at all to him.

Perhaps Sela Langdon was more than a wealthy, pampered suburban housewife after all, Will reflected. But that didn't explain why she would need to meet with him; surely he and Joseph would be working out the plan. Unless Joseph was being guarded too carefully and had recruited Sela to attend the meeting in his stead…

The instant Will stepped into Joseph's office and discovered him chatting pleasantly with Jack Freed and another officious-looking man in a (fairly cheap, Daniel Taft observed) suit, however, Will understood precisely why Sela wanted to see him without her husband's knowledge.

Joseph's dead eyes in his otherwise serene face told Will the whole terrible truth in a blink: Joseph knew exactly what the Partners had done to his daughter, he had even known they were going to do it, and he didn't intend to do a damn thing about it, just as he hadn't lifted a finger to stop it.

No grand reprisals. No furious revenge followed by a heroic escape.

With his daughter lying cold and stiff in a morgue somewhere, the life bled out of her through two gaping wounds in her slender wrists, Joseph Langdon was drinking coffee with Darian's killers.

The blinders fell away. For the first time, the young man known as Will Traveler felt that he was looking at the world with his eyes wide open.

What he saw changed everything.

This, he thought, nearly overcome by disgust and revulsion, _this _was who he had wanted to be? This man who could stand by while his beautiful, innocent, amazing fifteen-year-old daughter – his baby girl, Joseph had called her – was killed? This man who could ask the maid to prepare coffee on the good silver service set to impress the monster who had most likely ordered the hit on his child, his own flesh and blood? This man, this man who could now gaze brazenly at Will, as if daring him to admit that he had known, to accuse Joseph of failing in his duty as a father?

This was the life he had wanted for Maya? A house of cards, built on endless lies and needless deceit and remorseless brutality?

Will Traveler stopped being a Hometown agent in his heart at that moment. He would be forced to carry on as if nothing were different, to maintain the fiction of loyalty and patriotism, for more than a year, but he would never again believe in the justice or righteousness of what he was being asked to do. He saw the Partners for what they were, saw Joseph for what he was, saw how near he had come to selling his own soul and becoming just like them, and that was it: He was out.

Only, he was still in. In it up to his ears, in fact, and sinking fast.

Will put the pieces together in the brief interval between Sela opening the door and Joseph standing to greet him – less than three seconds, all told. He realized that he had not been called to New York to stand at Joseph's side against murdering bastards like Freed; he had been summoned for an interrogation, one which would be cloaked by coffee and cinnamon rolls. Because whether they had evidence or were simply operating on a hunch, the Powers that Be inside Hometown suspected that Will had known Darian's secret and had said nothing.

Very well, Will decided, slipping effortlessly into his relaxed, let-the-cameras-roll-'cause-I-got-nothing-to-hide demeanor. If they wanted to talk, he could talk. They had taught him how to lie, after all. Now it was time to find out if the demon could beat the devil at his own game.

_Ready…_

_Set…_

_Go._

"Will." Joseph used the young man's current alias once Sela had closed the door behind her. "Thank you for coming so quickly."

"Of course." Will matched the earnestness in Joseph's voice, firmly shaking his handler's hand. He even went so far as to pull Joseph into a swift hug before walking over to the circle of chairs where Freed and the stranger waited.

Will shook hands with both men in turn, careful to appear appropriately somber but not overly distraught.

"Director Freed, sir."

"Will, good to see you. Shame about the circumstances, though. Tragic, tragic."

"Hi, I'm Will Traveler. I don't believe we've met." Will directed this to the stranger in the bad suit.

The response was brusque, official: "Fred Chambers, New York FBI."

_And now that we've gotten the pleasantries out of the way, let the fun begin._

Will settled into a chair and regarded the drawn faces studying him with a convincing mixture of gravity and polite perplexity, as if to say, _I know we've had a death amongst us here, but what the hell does this have to do with me?_

Apparently, the expression worked, because his three interrogators seemed a bit uncertain as to how to press forward with their mark showing no signs of guilt or nervousness.

Freed took charge. "Will, we, uh, we wanted to ask you a few questions about the last time you visited the Langdons here, just before you left Deer Harbor for New Haven."

Will nodded, the picture of serenity. "Okay. Sure."

"After you left," Joseph waded into the fray, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and scrutinizing Will quite openly (after all, Joseph had debriefed Will too many times not to expect him to know when his handler was interrogating him), "Sela told me she'd come across you and Darian upstairs having a heart-to-heart. I'd like to know what you talked about that day."

"We talked about what was wrong with her."

Will was keenly aware that in this situation, the more of the truth he was able to tell, the greater his chances for survival. He was confident that he could fool the computers and the analysts – not to mention Joseph and Freed and this Chambers character – to some extent. But even the best operatives had tells, and Will wanted to minimize the opportunities for his to show through.

"I knew she'd been giving you and Sela lots of trouble, and when I finished speaking with Director Freed," Will nodded slightly in Freed's direction, "I found her standing out in the hall. I thought she might have been trying to listen in at the door, so I thought I should question her, see if she'd overheard anything she shouldn't have."

So far, so good. No men with guns had come barging in at least.

Joseph appeared flabbergasted by Will's honesty. "And what did you determine?"

"I determined that Darian was pretty unhappy with her life in this house," Will replied. He stared down at his hands, pausing for a long moment, feeling the suspense gather in the room. He knew they were waiting, for his confession or for his first mistake: The next words out of his mouth would either persuade them that he had known nothing about Darian's secret or would reveal, openly or unintentionally, that he had purposefully concealed a major security breach from his superiors.

Will knew exactly what to do.

Lifting his eyes, he allowed the cameras and his companions to see the anguish there. "This is just really, really hard to talk about given the circumstances. I feel like…Joseph, I feel like I should have done something."

Will thought the tension could have been cut with a knife. "What could you have done, Will?" Chambers prompted, edging forward in his seat like a hound who had scented blood.

In that moment, Will assessed Fred Chambers as a total moron. Who did he think he was dealing with, a green kid off the streets of suburbia? As if a trained operative would be fooled by the veneer of kindly concern Chambers offered up while waiting to see if Will was about to sign his own death warrant.

"I should have said something, to Sela or Joseph," Will replied. He turned back to Joseph, then, confessing in a rush, "Darian told me that she hated you. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Joseph, but…"

Will shrugged helplessly. Joseph silently waved him on, a muscle working in his jaw, the significance of which Will couldn't quite place. Was Joseph onto him, or was he fighting back tears because of Will's words?

"I tried to convince her that whatever was going on between her and you and Sela, whatever problems you guys had as a family, she couldn't screw up her own life over it." Again, Will offered up as much of the truth as possible, carefully editing his final conversation with Darian to fit with the story he was spinning as well as with what had actually happened. That, he hoped, would be enough to properly confuse the analysts and their computers. "I told her she needed to quit cutting class, quit doing weird stuff to her hair, quit listening in at doors – I told her she needed to get on with it, because every family had problems, and she needed to forgive you for not being perfect and go on with her life."

"And what was her reaction to this…advice?" Chambers was eyeing Will suspiciously.

Will returned the man's stare evenly. "I thought she took it," he answered, the honesty and sincerity in his voice unmistakable. That was the truth: He had believed that Darian intended to follow his advice; he had believed she was safe because of that. "She cried for a long time, and I felt like I'd gotten through to her. Like she was going to try to straighten up."

His tale complete, Will fell back in his chair. All he could do now, he realized, was wait – wait for them to decide if they believed him or if the interrogation needed to take a less civilized turn.

They couldn't have had any real evidence against him, Will thought, or he would have been dead already. They were fishing. Whatever Darian had done to bring herself and her knowledge to the attention of Hometown, it had not been definitive enough for them to establish with any certainty that Will was involved, even in the sense of merely knowing that she had known what business her father was really in.

Before they did away with one of their best operatives – an operative who was currently engaged in an incredibly important assignment – they wanted to be sure they weren't making a mistake.

Will's heart clenched as he realized what that meant: His mission, his operation in New Haven, was all that was keeping him alive at the moment. If he walked out of this room, he would still be walking out of it with a cloud of suspicion hanging over his head; he would never have time to grab Maya and run before Hometown intercepted them, although that was what he desperately wanted to do.

If he wanted to live, if he wanted to have a prayer of escape sometime in the future, he would have no choice but to return to New Haven and resume his cover as Will Traveler.

He would have no choice but to betray Jay and Tyler.

The elation that had filled Will hours earlier when he thought he was done with lying to his friends, when he thought he was finally free to contribute to their salvation instead of their destruction, crumbled to dust in his hands. Will had to concentrate very, very hard not to let any of his turbulent emotions show; the cameras were still rolling, so he could not afford the luxury of even a grimace despite the pain coursing through his soul.

He was caught. Trapped. No walking away. He stayed, he followed orders, or he died.

Will suddenly knew just how Maya had felt on the night when he first turned up in Deer Harbor. It was a horrible, suffocating feeling to have one's life hi-jacked, to recognize that he had no control of his own destiny, no say whatsoever in his future.

Freed cleared his throat. Whatever silent conference had taken place between his three questioners, Will sensed that it had ended. Judging from the relieved smile on Freed's face, Will knew he had passed the test.

He wasn't sure if he was happy about that or not. At least a quick, clean death would have simplified matters.

Joseph hung back after Freed and Chambers left, each shaking hands with Will and murmuring some indistinct condolences for the loss he had, as an albeit long-distance member of the Langdon household, suffered. Once the others were gone, though, something in Joseph's manner told Will they were still not speaking freely.

Will experienced a sudden strong suspicion that Joseph had not been fooled by his performance. In spite of himself, Will was grateful that his handler had not betrayed him, that Joseph was letting events play out as they would.

Perhaps he wasn't quite as accepting of his daughter's sacrifice as he appeared to be.

"Listen, Will, I'm sorry about this, but we can't run the risk of you showing up to the funeral," Joseph explained, laying a conciliatory hand on Will's shoulder. "There's just going to be so many people there, from my family and Sela's and from work and college and all that, and the less people who know you're part of our lives, the better for all of us. Do you understand?"

Will did. As Daniel Taft, he had always occupied a marginal role in the Langdon household; he had never been introduced around to their friends or families, for the obvious reason that he was an undercover operative who was meant to be neither seen nor remembered.

He also couldn't deny that he was selfishly relieved not to be expected to stand beside Darian's grave without whipping out his .9 millimeter and blasting her killers all to hell. Or to stand there knowing he could have – should have – found a way to save her.

"Will you be heading straight back to New Haven, then?" Joseph prompted.

Will considered this. "No," he decided. "Ellington told Burchell and Fog that I'm in Maine working on a chemical spill, so I should probably stay gone for today at least. Sela was going to make a hotel reservation for me," he went on, seeing Joseph trying to formulate a polite way to tell him that he would need to find another place to stay. "I'll head there now, get out from under your feet here."

"I really appreciate you coming, Will." Behind Joseph's words, Will detected a deeper meaning; he was certain then that Joseph did know Darian had confided in his operative, and equally certain that Joseph never intended to mention this fact to his superiors. Why, Will wasn't sure – maybe Joseph liked him, or maybe he had plans that would involve Will later on down the road.

In their world, one could never be sure what was real and what was a move in a larger game.

Will did not see Sela on the way out. Nor could he bring himself to go next door and look in on Sam, despite his promise; he had at that point been awake for more than twenty-four hours, and with the ordeal he had just been through sapping the last of his energy, the only thing Will could think about was a soft bed and a long nap. He drove in a haze of exhaustion the few miles to the charming boutique hotel Sela had booked him at, checked in at the front desk, and immediately collapsed onto the bed, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep from which he did not stir until much, much later that evening, when a knock on his door roused him.

_Sela._

She had showered and changed into a rose-colored cashmere sweater and a long, beige-colored suede skirt. As Joseph's wife stepped across his threshold into the room's light, however, even the fine clothes and the perfectly-coiffed hair and the carefully-applied makeup could not disguise the ravages of grief and sorrow: Sela looked old, old and tired, a way Will had never seen her look before.

"I can't stay long," she began at once, as Will locked and chained the door behind her. "I told Joseph I was stepping out for some groceries. We're about to be eaten out of house and home."

"Were you followed?" _Because if you were, I'm going to have some explaining to do._

"No. I know how to spot a tail, Daniel."

Interesting. "And how would you know how to do that, Sela?"

"Because I've been married to a spy for the past two decades, my dear. One picks up these little survival tips eventually."

Will sat down on the end of bed, watching Sela pace around his hotel room. She was holding herself together by a tenuous thread, anyone could see that. He admired her courage all the more for her weakness: She had taken a risk by coming to him, by revealing what she knew about her husband and his work.

Unless, of course, she was playing him.

Will supposed it was possible – unlikely, but possible, since in their world, anything seemed to be – that Sela was here as part of some elaborate ruse to trick him into admitting what he had known about Darian. Thus, although instinct told him he could trust her, Will opted to err on the side of caution and let Sela do most of the talking while he pinned down her motives.

"Aren't you going to ask me how I know about Joseph?" Sela positioned herself on the desk facing Will's bed, crossing her slender ankles in front of her and swinging her feet slowly back and forth.

Will leaned back on one elbow, considering her. "Okay," he rejoined mildly. "How do you know about Joseph?"

"He's never told me, you know. He's never once mentioned what he does or who he works for. But I knew. I knew before we ever got married."

Intrigued, Will pressed, "How?"

Sela was considering him as well. "You really don't understand what you've gotten yourself involved with, do you, Daniel? This isn't just some black ops arm of the government you're working for," she lectured him, sliding off the desk and resuming her pacing. "My father was a part of it, and his father before him, and his brothers – and it was the same for Joseph's family. Nobody ever talked openly about it, of course, but everybody knew that Daddy wasn't really going away on 'business' – not the sort of 'business' he claimed to be going away on, anyway. I grew up in this life, in this world. And then I fell in love with Joseph and married into it."

Her words aroused suspicions Will had always found too fantastic to entertain. From the time he had been recruited at nineteen, Will had wondered if Hometown was really the end-all, be-all of the Partners' interests: The program seemed so impressively well-conceived and well-organized to have been dreamed up only in the wake of the terrorist attacks in 2001. He had long detected the whiff of old money, old power, around the project, and Will knew enough about America's aristocracy to know that its members did not waste money or power on insignificant, hastily-drawn-up plots. If what Sela was hinting at were true, it suggested that Will had been right all along – Hometown was only one point on a larger map, one piece of a larger puzzle, one branch of a tree with roots that ran deep and stretched far into the nation.

_If _it was true.

"When Joseph brought you around, I didn't think you were from our world," Sela was saying, stopping beside the window to look at Will again. "You were so sweet and naïve, and you seemed so eager to fit in. I thought maybe it was an act, part of your training, but that wasn't the case, was it, Daniel?"

"I'm not from money," was all Will said in response. He still couldn't figure out what Sela wanted from him, and he knew better than to show his cards until he discerned what hand his opponent was playing.

"Then that means you can still get out, Daniel."

Will had to admit, that stunned him. He weighed his response carefully. If Sela was there on Hometown business, he could easily earn himself that bullet after all if he revealed his desire to escape what were supposed to be lifetime vows of service and loyalty.

"I'm not sure what you mean, Sela."

"I mean 'get out,' Daniel. I mean walk away. Before they do to you what they've done to us."

Sela was impassioned suddenly, crossing to the bed and kneeling before Will, clutching his hands in hers. "Joseph's not a bad man," she insisted, her eyes pleading with Will to agree with her. "He's a very good man, actually, but they've got him trapped. His whole life is controlled by these people – all of his family are connected to it somehow, and so are Sam and I, just by being his wife and child. No matter what they do to us, no matter what they tell him to do, he can't do anything about it. But you, Daniel," Sela pulled herself up onto the bed beside him, still gripping his fingers fiercely, "you're not in that deep. You can disappear. You can walk away."

"If you really believe that, Sela," Will answered guardedly, although his doubts about her honesty were starting to evaporate in the face of her genuine distress, "then you don't understand the world your husband and I live in at all."

"But I do, Daniel. I do." Sela stared imploringly into Will's eyes, begging him to trust her, to hear her. "They took my daughter from me because she had the one thing they most fear – knowledge. Your knowledge is your weapon, Daniel. It's your ticket to a new life. Everything you know about them, everything you could expose about them, that's what you use to get free of all this."

There was truth in her words, no denying that. Nevertheless, Will recognized the pivotal distinction between "knowledge" and "proof": What he knew was only dangerous to the Partners in as much as he could prove it. Otherwise, he could scream what he "knew" to the heavens and merely be labeled another crackpot conspiracy theorist.

Unfortunately, Will had scant proof – of his training, of his missions, any of it. What he did have – some bank account records, some passports – was hardly the sort of incontrovertible evidence one would need in order to threaten an entity as powerful as Hometown.

Although – wait. Will's mind jerked into action, slogging through the grief and the weariness, seeking out the pin-point of light in the darkness he seemed to be mired in. Proof he could gather, so long as he remained an active Hometown agent; he simply could not do his job without being allowed access to evidence, hard evidence like bank accounts and emails, that could be used against the Partners. That was why they worked so diligently to indoctrinate operatives into their God-and-country belief system, why they struck so swiftly when an agent's loyalty was called in to question as his had been over Darian's death – their soldiers held the power to bring them down, and the Partners were painfully aware of it.

Or was he wrong? Was knowledge all it took? After all, wasn't knowledge all Darian had possessed?

As if she could read his thoughts, Sela related softly, her voice charged with anguished fury, "I was afraid she knew when she changed so suddenly. I didn't know what to do – I mean, I couldn't very well bring it up to her in case she didn't know. I tried hinting about it to Joseph but he seemed convinced it was just teenage rebellion, and I couldn't bring myself to broach it directly, not after spending twenty years pretending not to know what he does…

"But then when I saw you holding her that day," Sela appeared to force herself to continue rather than submit to tears, "I knew she had told you. And I knew you would make her see how important it was for her to never, ever say anything to anyone. You'll never know how relieved I was that day, Daniel." Sela touched Will's cheek tenderly. "You'll never know how proud I was to be able to think of you as my second son, knowing the risk you were taking for all of us by protecting her secret."

Tears threatened Will. He had not cried – not really, truly cried – in three years, since the night he had killed his first man. He had felt nothing at the time (aim the scope, squeeze the trigger, bang-bang, a little blood, a little brain matter), nothing until he had lain down to sleep that night and the dam which had blocked his tears even at his father's funeral had broken. Sobbing in Alex's arms, Will had sworn to cry himself dry so he would never have to feel such pain again.

He felt it now.

"It wasn't enough," Will protested, pushing Sela away and rising. He couldn't stand her gratitude, her maternal love; it only served to make the weight of guilt hanging around his neck heavier. "She must've told somebody. She must have, or else…I'm not saying she did anything wrong," he declared vehemently, turning back to Sela, determined that she acknowledge where the blame for Darian's death lay – on Will's shoulders, not her daughter's. "She was a kid. She couldn't be expected to keep a secret like that. I should've known better, I should've gotten her out while I still could…"

"She didn't tell anyone, Daniel. Not a soul. She never breathed a word of what she knew."

Confusion overcame Will. "Then how – then why – "

"She found proof." Sela walked over to the desk, where she had deposited her coat and purse, and produced from her handbag an innocuous-looking, rather battered purple notebook.

"Darian was a smart kid, Daniel, and she had a lot of curiosity," Sela explained. She held the notebook out to him; Will was half-afraid to take it, fearful of what awful revelations it might hold on a day when he had experienced quite enough emotional shocks. "She was fifteen, she was curious, and she thought she was in love. She got in over her head and found something she was never supposed to find."

_In love?_

Reluctantly, as if it were a live animal that could bite, Will accepted the notebook from Sela's trembling hands. On the front inside cover, in bold block letters penned in blood-red ink, was written:

_This diary is the PERSONAL and PRIVATE property of Darian Langdon. Do not read. (This means you!)_

A mirthless smile touched Will's lips. As if such a simple warning could have protected her secrets from prying eyes…

Will flipped through the notebook slowly, afraid to see whatever it was Sela wanted to show him. Phrases jumped out at him, all in Darian's neat, careful script: _"nothing about us is real – charade of the American dream – Mom loves a lie – who is Daniel – wish I could run away." _

_"Who is Daniel."_

_Daniel – Daniel – Daniel…_

On almost every page, that name – Daniel.

Realization creeping upon him like an icy fist closing around his heart, Will forced himself to keep turning pages until he reached the end of the journal, aware that Sela was watching him with tears streaming silently down her cheeks. As the back page of the journal fell open, Will suddenly understood what events had transpired to cause the Partners to order Darian Langdon's execution.

Taped to the notebook's inside back cover was a picture of Will.

It had been taken by Alex on Will's last day of training before he left to meet his handler, more than three and a half years ago now. In the photo, a nineteen-year-old Will (who had by then embraced the identity Hometown had given him, Daniel Taft) was wearing camouflage fatigues spattered with mud and carrying a rifle over his shoulder, grinning cockily at the camera and flashing the 'V' for victory sign. With a pang of remorse for the innocence he had still retained on that day, Will recalled that he had just successfully completed the grueling obstacle course which constituted his graduation examination for Phase One of agent training.

The computer. The picture had to have been printed off of Joseph's computer. At some point after their conversation, Darian must have returned to her father's office and found her way back into his files, all in search of a picture of Daniel Taft to tape inside her journal.

The first time she had stumbled across Joseph's files, Darian had gotten lucky – no one had been watching. Luck was by definition fickle, though, and sooner or later, hers had run out.

She had died over a picture. A picture that, even though she couldn't have known it, threatened the heart of one of the Partners' most precious schemes because it proved the existence of Will Traveler. Well, not definitively, it didn't, but in the wrong hands, it could have been the first step to exonerating Jay and Tyler, to exposing the people who had framed them.

To Will's twenty-three-year-old eyes, which had seen a lot more of the world than the eyes staring up at him from the photograph, the picture Darian had so desperately sought out was that of a kid playing soldier, a boy playing hero. To Darian, however, he had apparently seemed like the real thing – a real soldier, a real hero – for surrounding the picture, drawn in sparkly-purple ink, were hearts with "Darian + Daniel" written inside of them.

_She thought I was her hero…She thought she was in love with some kind of hero…_

Further proof of Darian's infatuation confronted Will at the bottom of the page, beneath the photo and the hearts. In the way of fifteen-year-olds everywhere who communicated their deepest emotions through music, Darian had excerpted a few lines from the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" to describe the man she knew as Daniel: _"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste; I've been around for a long, long year, stolen many man's soul and faith; Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name; But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game."_

Will had never hated himself more than at that moment, when he realized how completely Darian Langdon had idolized him – how completely she had trusted him – how completely she had romanticized what he did and who he was.

She had thought he was some kind of dark knight, Will reflected, suppressing the urge to rip his photo from the cover and tear it to shreds. He imagined Darian gazing longingly at the picture in her room late at night, daydreaming about "Daniel" swooping in to rescue her. Daniel, who had assured her that everything would be fine so long as she told no one what she knew. Daniel, who had promised her that her dad worked for the good guys, and that he did as well.

Daniel, who had been duty-bound to protect her – not bound to the Partners, bound by a higher code, the code of humanity and decency – and who had chosen instead to think of his own future, his own security, his own desires.

He had left a fifteen-year-old to pick her way through a veritable minefield, Will understood that now with gut-wrenching clarity. Never mind that he couldn't have suspected she would go digging for information about him. The point was, he had known that Darian was a kid, not an operative – had he put more than a half-second's thought into the situation (the rest of his mind being devoted to Maya and the New Haven op and the possibility of ascending the ranks of Hometown), he would have seen that she could never guard such a secret as closely as it would have had to have been guarded to truly protect her.

"You see, Daniel, I think she was a little bit in love with you."

Sela's voice was so kind, Will wanted to grab her by the arms and shake the forgiveness out of her. "She shouldn't have been," he answered bitterly, returning the notebook to her. Sela pressed it against her chest as if it might still contain some essence of her daughter. "I didn't do anything to help her. I didn't do anything to protect her."

"And what could you have done, Daniel? Stolen her away into the night?" Sela's smile was so sad, so defeated, it broke Will's heart. "Sweetheart, you weren't the one who was supposed to protect Darian. That was my job. Mine, and Joseph's. You don't get to carry this one. I'm afraid this one is all on us, honey."

Will started to protest. But, it seemed, there was more for him to discover that night.

"I think this is probably what really did it, what really made them come after her," Sela said, sliding a folded sheet of paper from her purse and handing it to Will. "It was in the journal, too. You should read it after I leave. I need to be getting back or someone will get suspicious, and I'd rather not have to explain what I was doing in a young man's hotel room when I'm supposed to be buying groceries."

Will watched Sela slip on her coat and gather up her purse. She left Darian's journal on the desk. Will understood without being told that Sela knew it was too dangerous an item to keep – if the Partners ever learned she had it, she and Sam and Joseph would all be dead – but that she also couldn't bring herself to destroy such a tangible piece of her daughter's life. She was passing that burden to Will. He accepted it as a son's duty.

"What will you do now?" he asked, seeing her to the door.

Sela shrugged. Will feared that the light he had so loved about her would never return to her dark eyes, just as the light in Darian's had been extinguished forever.

"Now," she answered tiredly, "I go home, so tomorrow I can bury my daughter. And the next day, I'm going to get up and take care of my son and my husband. The next day, I'm going to go on living, just like I did yesterday and the day before that."

Sela gently patted Will's hand where it rested on the doorframe, regarding him with her sorrowful eyes. "We all live out our little fictions, Daniel. I hope you find a way to write yourself a happier story than ours."

Will wanted to offer to rescue her and Sam, if Sela wanted out, but he didn't. He knew in his heart that Sela loved Joseph, in spite of everything; she would never leave him, never deprive Sam of his father. So he said nothing, just hugged her one more time before she marched out into the cold night, head held high and shoulders squared, bravely striking off toward whatever fresh horrors awaited her in the labyrinthine world they inhabited.

Then Will shut the door and faced what he hoped would be the evening's last revelation.

Obviously printed from a computer – no doubt Joseph's, just like the picture – the paper turned out to be a memo. It read, underneath the words **CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET:**

"TO: DEPUTY DIRECTOR JACK FREED

FROM: J. LANGDON

RE: RECOMMENDATION, HOMETOWN RECRUIT JONATHAN MICHAEL DAVIS

As requested, my office has completed the fitness profile for Jonathan Michael Davis, a.k.a. Jon-Michael, aged 18 years, of Arlington, Virginia.

Dr. Kathleen Bohe (FBI asset in Richmond, Virginia) performed routine physical examination of Davis at Edon Private Academy on April 3. Dr. Bohe reports that Davis is in excellent physical condition and displays no signs of chronic illness. He denies smoking or drinking alcohol to excess; toxicology screen was clear. Dr. Bohe reviewed Davis' medical records and physical education transcripts from Edon. Reports that he is an avid runner, maintains a daily strength-training regimen, and holds a black-belt in martial arts. Her opinion is that Davis is more than fit for the rigors of operational training.

Dr. Laurence Parker (consultant for Fallbrook Dunn at Georgetown University) submitted his psychological profile of Davis to my office yesterday. Dr. Parker arranged to be among the faculty present for Davis' scholarship interview. (As you know, Davis has enrolled in the pre-med program at Georgetown for this coming fall.) Dr. Parker reports that Davis is both intelligent and charming. The following excerpts from his report were particularly illuminating:

'Subject's interest in medicine stems from a desire for financial security and social status. Observed no altruistic tendencies…Subject is handsome, clever and personable, yet reserved…Tries to offend no one and befriend everyone by changing his personality to match current company. Brings to mind a chameleon: Subject seeks acceptance but not recognition, and therefore will blend nicely into any background.'

Dr. Parker also reviewed Davis' letters of recommendation from Edon Academy faculty and his college entrance essays. He has declared Davis an optimal candidate for Hometown with regards to intelligence, values and demeanor.

I have personally reviewed Davis' Edon transcripts and the video and audio surveillance footage gathered over the past six months. At this time, I am recommending that we move forward with his recruitment. I suggest that he be approached immediately following his father's death. The boy is not particularly patriotic, but he does believe in duty and loyalty. If he believes himself to be avenging his father, I think we can use him.

On a related matter, C. Fog has requested an update on the status of Operation Half-Mast. He reports that Walls is prepared to move forward at anytime. Please advise."

Will's stomach churned. So this was it – this was how he had been recruited into Hometown. Joseph and Jack Freed had seen a fringe benefit to their planned assassination of a United States Senator who had gotten a little too close for comfort to a major bribery scandal at the SEC: If the highly-decorated, much-loved Secret Service agent assigned to Senator Grant died in his attempt to save the senator (which, with a man like Will's father, was a fairly safe conclusion to draw, that he would succeed in his duty or die trying), Freed would swoop in on the fallen hero's son while the boy was grieving. On the heels of tragedy, the Partners would snap up the clever, capable son, the boy Michael Davis, Sr., had always bragged about to those he worked with, for their own "use."

And like a stupid, naïve kid, Jon-Michael Davis, the boy Will Traveler had been for nearly nineteen years before sacrificing that identity to become Daniel Taft, had played right into their hands. Like Darian, he had never seen them coming.

Well, Will thought, crumpling the paper into a tiny ball and squeezing it until his fingernails bit into the palm of his hand, he saw them now. He saw everything now, and quite clearly. Saw how he had been used, saw how he had been lied to, saw how he had been made to do terrible, terrible things for the good of no one except a few greedy, power-hungry old men.

Saw how to free himself from their clutches.

Will did not delude himself that walking away from Hometown would be easy or safe. He did not kid himself that he could obtain his own freedom and Maya's without making some incredibly difficult sacrifices – sacrifices like Jay and Tyler. Will knew it was time to start facing reality: He could not have it all, he could not save his friends and the woman he loved and himself; he would have to make some compromises, accept some not-so-pleasant outcomes, as well as run some serious risks in order to bring any of them through this with even a prayer of survival.

If he had to choose, Will chose Maya. If he had to save someone, he would save her.

Jay and Tyler he wasn't sure he could save anyway, not with the Partners so determined to do them in. Although maybe, just maybe, Will thought, he could find a way to leave them the means of saving themselves.

He would need every skill Hometown had given him if he were to succeed. He would need every ounce of cunning, every drop of deceit, every bit of mercilessness. Up to this point, Will had been determined to be the best agent he could possibly be in the hopes that doing so would earn him a place in the Partners' inner circle. Now, although to some extent his mission was the same – successfully frame Jay and Tyler, prevent the Partners from becoming suspicious of his ulterior motives for doing so – Will was determined to take the weapon the Partners had made him into and turn it back around on them.

A plan was already forming in Will's mind as he lay down on the hotel room bed, Darian Langdon's journal resting on his stomach. He tucked his grief and despair, his rage and confusion, deep down inside of himself where it would not muddle his thinking, where it would not affect his mission – not the one the Partners had given him nor the one he was in the process of concocting for himself.

If he simply refused to accept defeat, Will reminded himself, he was sure to win.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14:**

"**Together"**

For Maya, Christmas was coming early: The fall semester at Yale ended one week before the big holiday, and Will would be arriving on the six o'clock train that very night. She couldn't have dreamed up a better gift than an entire month with Will, who would not be expected back in New Haven until classes resumed after New Year's.

Since losing her parents, Maya had dreaded the holiday season. The holiday had certainly not been the same after Lorelei's death, though Thomas had at least always made an effort for his daughter's sake (Jericho had virtually disappeared after his high school graduation, which came mere days after they buried Lorelei). Maya recalled with a pang the bittersweetness of her father's last Christmas; by then, they had known the chemotherapy wasn't working, and the possibility of finding a matching bone marrow donor for him in time had been shrinking by the day. Maya had done her utmost to make the day special. She had roasted a turkey, whipped mashed potatoes and baked a pumpkin pie – her father's favorite – according to her great-grandma Sanders' recipe; she had sung Christmas carols to Thomas as he lay on the couch watching her decorate the artificial tree; she had admired every gift she opened as if it was the most wonderful thing she had ever received, pretending not to know that Margot had done Thomas' shopping for him, since he was too ill and hadn't wanted Maya buying her own presents.

But of course, the day had been darkened not only by her father's illness but also by the absence of her mother, whom Thomas still seemed to miss as much as he had the day she died, and of Jericho, who had been somewhere in New York trying to establish a rock band and doing an obscene amount of drugs.

With her father gone, Maya had spent every Christmas for the last five years alone. Jericho had hardly set foot in Deer Harbor after Thomas's death, not sticking around with any permanence until a month before his arrest; at the time, Maya had correctly assumed that whatever drug-dealing he had gotten into in the big city had earned him some dangerous enemies and that he had headed north to lie low for a while. The outcome of that decision was, of course, history.

Maya had not even bothered with setting up the Christmas tree after that last year with her father, and she hadn't even considered doing so once Jericho was shipped off to prison. Why try, she had asked herself, why make the effort, why go through the motions, when she was the only one around to enjoy it, and she certainly didn't feel like celebrating?

This year was going to be different. As a child, Maya had adored Christmas, primarily because her mother had made the holiday so magical; for the first time in a long while, Maya could feel the old excitement building in her as the days shortened and the snow thickened along Main Street.

Lorelei had gone all-out for Christmas. Decorating the house had been a family affair, always performed two weeks from the big day itself and requiring everyone's assistance to pull off. Thomas had hauled box after box of ceramic Santas and plastic ornaments and porcelain nativity scenes up from the basement; Lorelei had divided the decorations up equally between Jericho and Maya, assigning each of them a room to adorn as they saw fit, while she had focused on her masterpiece – the tree. Being something of a flower-child, Lorelei had refused to chop down an actual tree, yet Maya was sure not even the most gorgeous fir could have compared to their artificial K-Mart tree once Lorelei finished draping it in gold bulbs, silver tinsel, and tiny glass angels.

Once they were properly "in the Christmas spirit," as Lorelei had called it, the little family would spend the next fourteen days in a whirlwind of preparations for their own festivities as well as the annual Christmas Eve party Thomas had always thrown at "Have Books, Will Travel" – yet another family traditional that had ended for Maya with her mother's death.

Hardly wealthy, somehow or other Thomas and Lorelei had always managed to have the money to take Jericho and Maya into Augusta for a three-day shopping weekend in early December. They had stayed at a Holiday Inn with an indoor pool and eaten dinner out every night, a real treat for their necessarily-frugal family. Because Thomas believed it was important for his children to be exposed to some culture beyond the bluegrass bands that wandered through Maine in the summer, they had always attended a play or a symphony or a concert. And, of course, they had visited the enormous mall, so much bigger and more impressive than any of the mom-and-pop stores in Deer Harbor. They would split up – Lorelei and Jericho, Thomas and Maya – to do their shopping, each pair buying gifts for the other pair that were then hidden away until Christmas Eve.

As a very small child, Maya had not known that her mother was shopping for her – Thomas had told her that the two of them were helping Santa choose gifts for her mother and brother, but Santa would be delivering her presents himself. In later years, however, the two pairs had made a game of trying to spy on one another, to get a heads-up on what would be under the tree.

Maya had inherited her love of cooking and baking from Lorelei, and Christmas always brought back fond memories of her mother showing her how to mix up cookie dough to the perfect texture or how to flute the edges of a pie crust or how to add just the right pinch of sugar to a lemon-cream cake in preparation for the town-wide holiday bash at Thomas' bookstore. Their kitchen had hummed with activity for four days leading up to the event, which had always been well-attended and considered by most everyone in Deer Harbor to be a highlight of the season: Lorelei's treats had always made a splash, and Thomas had always arranged for an author of some note – and oftentimes of some local prominence, like a Maine senator who had written a guide to the best ice-fishing spots in the state – to do a reading and book-signing during the evening. For the children, Thomas had ensured that Santa and Mrs. Claus would make an appearance sometime during the party to read a Christmas story and to hand out little gifts like water guns and bubbles.

Christmas Day itself had been just their family, waking up early to open presents. (Maya often wondered, looking back on those times, if her parents had even gone to bed, given how late the bookstore party often broke up.) Maya and Jericho had played with their new toys or, as they got older, read their new books or listened to their new albums while Lorelei had buzzed around the kitchen preparing lunch – always a huge feast – and Thomas had napped on the couch. In the afternoons, they had watched football or taken a long walk or engaged in good-natured snowball fights. Whatever they had done, so long as Lorelei had been alive, they had done it together, as a family.

Such memories had for the past five years only served to make Maya feel her loneliness more acutely. But this year, knowing she would be with the man she loved, Maya found that she was able to think back happily on those times of togetherness, even those years when Lorelei's eyes had sported a tell-tale glaze that spelled certain disaster on the horizon.

The day of Will's arrival – a Friday – Maya did not open the store. Instead, she drove the hour northeast into Augusta and wandered through the mall, seeking out the perfect gift for Will. What did one buy for a spy? She wasn't sure, but she trusted that she would know it when she saw it – Thomas had always told her that the best way to buy a gift was to wait for something that reminded her of the recipient.

Maya had purposefully delayed her shopping expedition until that day because she knew otherwise she would have paced her store like a caged tiger, feeling the length of every minute separating her from the moment when she would see Will again. Six weeks felt like an eternity, especially since they couldn't even speak to one another on the phone. She wondered how she would possibly be able to let Will go in January after spending four weeks together – her heart might split right down the middle, she feared.

But that day was a long ways off yet, so Maya focused on enjoying the process of hunting for Will's gift. She considered all of the usuals: a tie, a jacket, cologne, cuff-links, a wallet. All of that just seemed so…generic. Maya wanted something that would convey to Will the depth of her affection, something that would say to him, _This girl really gets who I am, really knows what I like and what I want._

At the same time, however, Maya's natural shyness made her wary of buying anything too intimate. Like a ring, for instance, one of those strangely masculine right-hand rings she had always admired on men and had thought, looking at Will's hands as she taught him how to cast a fishing line over the summer, would look so classy on him. But would a ring say, _I'm expecting one in return? _

Maya had never been in a serious relationship before. Although Will had told her that he wanted to spend his life with her, she didn't want to seem pushy, like she expected him to propose. She couldn't deny that she was half-hoping for a proposal; each jewelry store she passed seemed to have an even more beautiful diamond solitaire on display than the last. But she didn't want to rush things, didn't want to seem like one of "those girls" who would drag a guy kicking and screaming down the aisle.

Anyway, she supposed sporting an engagement ring would be a dead giveaway to Will's employers that they had moved somewhat beyond the approved operative-asset relationship.

So no unimaginative gifts and no overly-suggestive gifts. Those were basically Maya's criteria as she wandered through the mall picking up and putting down CDs (she knew what music Will liked, but nothing jumped out at her as special enough to purchase), examining men's watches (classic, which she thought Will would appreciate, but still nothing that spoke to her), and rifling through a dozen different gift ideas before finally – finally, just when she was afraid she was going to have to settle for something less than perfect – she saw it.

The little jewelry store was tucked away in a back corner of the mall, off the beaten path where, Maya assumed, a majority of shoppers never even ventured. She herself had surely passed by it a half-dozen times over the years without really noticing its existence. A sign above the door said, simply, "Jewelers," yet the simplicity of the store, its understated appearance, suggested elegance and originality.

And probably expensiveness, too, Maya noted, though she decided to be optimistic and at least ask for the price of the item that had caught her eye.

It was a Saint Christopher's medal, though not the sort of cheap, circular medallion that could be purchased at any Catholic bookstore. The image of St. Christopher holding a spear and a sword was in this case impressed upon a thick silver cross dangling from a thin silver chain. As soon as she saw it, Maya thought of Will for two reasons: First off, something about the medallion suggested to her strength and courage; she thought perhaps it was the thickness of the silver, making the medal resemble a chunk of rock that had been carved. Secondly, of course, St. Christopher was the patron saint of travelers.

She suspected Will Traveler would appreciate the irony.

A silver-haired woman in a cranberry-colored suit approached Maya with a smile as soon as she entered the store, which, unlike the rest of the crowded mall, was empty of other customers. "Good afternoon," the sales lady greeted her warmly in a cultured British accent. "How could I help you today?"

"I was interested in that Saint Christopher's medal in your window," Maya replied. She mentally calculated how much she could afford to spend as the woman retrieved the medallion from its display case. If it was more than one hundred dollars, Maya's budget wouldn't be able to accommodate it.

"Excellent choice," the saleswoman observed. Maya, being a salesperson herself, accepted this for the meaningless flattery it was, though she appreciated the cordiality. "We specialize in unusual pieces here – many of our items come from estates or antique auctions. This particular necklace was worn by a Catholic priest in New York, I believe. We only acquired it a few days ago, from a dealer in Albany."

The woman handed the necklace across the glass countertop to Maya, who turned it over in her fingers. As she had expected, the medallion was heavy; it lay cold and solid against her palm, the weight of it somehow reassuring, as if the image truly could offer its wearer protection. Considering how dangerous Will's life was, Maya wondered if some higher power had directed her to this particular gift. A chill not unlike the one she had experienced inside Madame Morphea's tent skated down her spine.

Besides, she thought, she could imagine how nice the dark silver would look against Will's smooth, brown skin…

"How much?" Maya asked lightly, hoping to suggest mild curiosity rather than desperate hope that the necklace would fall into her price range.

The sales lady checked a ticket hanging from the necklace's clasp. "Three hundred."

_Damn, I knew it…_

Handing the medallion back to the woman, Maya said apologetically, "That's a little more than I can afford, but thanks for your help."

"Who were you thinking of it for?"

Maya hesitated. Were they negotiating here or making small talk? Perhaps this was the type of independently-owned store where the price tag didn't necessarily have the final say.

"My boyfriend," she answered.

"Is he Catholic?"

Realizing she didn't know, Maya went with her gut: "No, he's not particularly religious. But something about that," she nodded at the necklace the woman still held, "reminded me of him. This is our first Christmas together, see, and I want to get him something really special."

"Ah." The older woman smiled knowingly. "I remember my first Christmas with my husband – certainly a special time." She paused, studying the necklace. "What does your young man do, if I might ask?"

Automatically, without even thinking about her response, Maya said, "He's a soldier."

So that was really how she thought of Will, Maya realized – a soldier. Or maybe "warrior" would be a more apt description.

"Dangerous business. I can see why you'd want him to have all the protection he can get."

The sales lady appeared to be debating something with herself. Maya waited anxiously, wondering if the woman would, in fact, come down on the price out of sympathy for a young couple just starting out in the world.

"How much were you planning to spend?" she finally asked.

Heart in her throat – for some reason, she desperately wanted to buy this necklace for Will, though she didn't fully understand why – Maya confessed, "A hundred dollars is the most I can afford."

"I see." The woman pressed her lips together, considering. Maya waited on pins and needles. She understood the sales lady's predicament: A business owner herself, Maya knew the value of every sale.

"I suppose…Well, I suppose I could come down to one-fifty. That's half-price, after all."

Maya ran through some quick calculations in her mind. It would mean putting off installing a new hot water heater for another month, or else dipping – again – into her meager savings…But what the hell, it was Christmas, and it was for Will. If she couldn't splurge a little on those two things, what did she work so hard for?

Fifteen minutes later, the medallion nestled inside a blue velvet box expertly gift-wrapped in silver paper, Maya strode out of the mall into the crisp afternoon air with a broad smile on her face. She knew she had found the perfect gift. And she even had time to dash home and stash it away before she was due to meet Will's train.

A thrill of excitement ran through her as she realized she had less than three hours to go until she would see Will again. She felt starved for the sight of him. She couldn't wait to hear his voice, that throaty, sexy little laugh; to watch his eyes dance with mischief as he recounted his latest adventures with Jay and Tyler; to lay her head on his shoulder and breathe in the clean, musky scent that still lingered on her pillow from his last visit.

Truthfully, Maya just couldn't wait to be in the same room with Will. She didn't care what they did or said so long as she could just be near him.

Back at her house with an hour to spare, Maya stepped into a steaming shower and washed and dried her hair. She dressed carefully in a pair of faded jeans Will always admired (when he thought she wasn't looking, of course – he was too much a gentleman to ogle her openly) and a new dove-gray sweater she had purchased while at the mall. Each time Will returned to Deer Harbor, Maya was consumed by a desire to look her best: She trusted him to be faithful to her, she honestly did, yet she couldn't help being a teensy bit insecure about how she, the small town girl who had seen so little of the world, stacked up against the brilliant, sophisticated women at Yale. She was determined to do her utmost to keep Will's attention, both while he was in Deer Harbor and while he was in New Haven.

To that end, Maya was just spritzing on a dab of vanilla-scented perfume when she heard the front door open and close softly.

Her heart stumbled to a standstill. She knew, with absolute certainty, that she hadn't left her door unlocked. Ever since the business with the Pruitt brothers, she had been beyond conscientious in matters of home security.

Footsteps sounded lightly below her, moving through the living room into the kitchen. Maya cast about desperately for a weapon; her eyes lit on a heavy brass candlestick on the corner of her dresser. Gripping the makeshift club with both hands, Maya tried to calm her racing heart, to be cool and collected like she had seen Will be in the face of danger, as she crept into the hallway and peered down the staircase.

_You idiot, _she chided herself suddenly. _You're like the stupid girl in a horror movie who goes to investigate a strange noise! Go back to your bedroom, lock the door and call the sheriff!_

Maya turned on her heel and started to beat a hasty retreat back to her room, wondering where in the world she had gotten the idea that she could – or should – confront an intruder. Maybe Will the spy was rubbing off on her more than she had suspected…

"Maya?"

Maya dropped the candlestick, which clattered to the floor with a horrible crash, when Will's voice floated up the staircase.

"Maya!"

"I'm okay, I'm okay – "

Before she could even finish her sentence, however, Will was up the stairs and at her side, a wicked-looking combat knife clutched in his hand. "What happened?" he demanded, poised for attack.

"I dropped this." Maya nudged the candlestick on the floor with her toe, trying not to laugh – she was touched by Will's protectiveness, yet the situation, her own clumsiness, struck her as awfully funny. "I thought you were a burglar."

"Jesus." Will passed a hand across his eyes, going rather limp with relief. "I thought…"

Maya was so happy to see Will that his distress didn't immediately register with her. He was here, that was all she could think: He was here, he had come early to surprise her, she didn't have to wait even another thirty minutes to see him –

Then the look on his face, the gut-wrenching fear behind his gaze, cut through her elation. Maya's heart dropped into the region of her shoes.

What had happened to Will since she saw him last? What had he seen, what had he been through, to make him look that way, so vulnerable and anguished?

"Will," she started, reaching for him, wanting to reassure him that she was all right.

The moment her fingers touched his, Maya felt a jolt of electricity shoot through her, just like on the night they had first met back in July. Except this time, the current was a hundred times stronger.

The fear in Will's eyes was abruptly replaced by a blazing heat that drew Maya in like a moth to a flame – irresistible, that was the only word for how he looked in that instant. She took one tiny step forward, her eyes locked onto his, her heart racing in her chest. Almost before she knew what was happening,certainly before she had time to contemplate where they were heading once their mouths connected, Will was kissing her.

It was like sinking and flying all at once. Will's knife fell forgotten to the floor to join the candlestick; his hands were on her hips, pulling her so close not an inch of space remained between them. Fingers tangled in his hair, Maya urged Will's mouth more firmly onto hers, inflamed by the feel of his lean, powerful body melding itself to hers, his every muscle taut with urgent desire.

Will's passion stole Maya's breath, left her weak in the knees. When she started to sway, he caught her around the waist and half-walked, half-carried her the few steps into her bedroom.

Maya didn't stop to think about the rules, didn't pause to worry about the repercussions. Will was what she had wanted for so long, she couldn't bring herself to care what had transpired to break down his remarkable self-control. She simply allowed herself to be swept along on a rising wave of desire, accepting that if there were consequences – and there always were, for every action – she would face them when they came.

Will was an incredible lover. Maya's experience in such matters was limited: She wasn't a virgin, thanks to the very sweet and shy boy who had escorted her to the senior prom, but she was perhaps the next closest thing to. Nevertheless, she understood pleasure, and she quickly learned that Will was something of an expert in that department.

They fell onto the bed together in a tangle of limbs, undressing one another swiftly, hardly breaking their passionate kisses to do so. Once they lay skin-to-skin, however, Will slowed down, took his time. He kissed and touched and adored every inch of her, murmuring in her ear how beautiful she was, how much he loved her. His lips charted a blazing path from her earlobe to her ankle; his fingertips traced lazy circles on her stomach as he worked his mouth back up her body, smiling against her skin when she cried out with pleasure.

Catching his wrists, Maya flipped Will over onto his back and crushed her mouth against his. Her skin was warm and flushed yet covered in goose-bumps; she had never felt more alive inside her own body while at the same time feeling as if part of herself was floating up by the ceiling on a happy cloud. She wanted to make Will feel the same way he had made her feel – cherished. Cherished, and needed, and protected, and loved. She didn't think any woman could have asked for more.

Will submitted with soft, sexy sighs to Maya's reciprocal exploration. She took her time, too, discovering the sensitive spot behind his right ear that made him shiver when kissed and experimenting with different ways to make him whisper her name in a sexy growl. She gave in to a long-standing, inexplicable desire to trace the rigid muscles in his stomach with her tongue, which made him laugh in ticklish protest. Maya, never a particularly confident person, was nonetheless secure enough in Will's love for her, in the beauty of her own body she saw reflected in his passionate gaze, to know that she would be good at pleasing him. In every way she knew how – and in some new ways that he showed her – she did just that.

When Maya at last shifted beneath Will, telling him with her eyes what she wanted, and their bodies joined, their first time was desperate, somewhat furious, as if they were both trying to soothe a deep ache in their hearts. Maya wrapped her legs tightly around Will and closed her eyes, letting herself soar toward the ever-brightening rainbow behind her eyes until it exploded in a shower of colors that left her gasping. Before she had time to recover herself, Will was slowing down, becoming tender again; the second time they made love, he was all gentleness and barely-there kisses, slowly and deliberately working them both toward a softer – and somehow more substantial – fulfillment.

Afterwards, both spent from their love-making, they slept, arms and legs wound together, noses almost touching though their heads rested on separate pillows. When Maya awoke, the near-total darkness in the room told her they had slept for a few hours at least; the afternoon and evening were gone, given way to night.

And Will was still there. Such a simple thing, yet it made her heart soar.

Opening his eyes a few seconds later, Will offered her a sleepy smile and a simple, yet indescribably sweet, "Hi."

Maya giggled, realizing they hadn't actually said "hello" before falling into each other's arms.

"Hi," she said back. Will reached for her; Maya snuggled happily against him. "Not that I'm complaining, but I wasn't expecting you to be here so soon."

"Good surprise or bad surprise?"

"I'm pretty much okay with it." They grinned at one another.

Despite the perfection of the moment, Maya couldn't shake the conviction that something was wrong. Will was…different, she didn't know how else to explain it. The difference went beyond his sudden, inexplicable willingness to take the risk of making love to her when they had been denying themselves that very fulfillment since late July. She could have chalked that up to the heat of the moment, a decision their bodies – and their hearts – had finally made for them, against Will's better judgment perhaps.

No, it was more than Will's apparent disregard for the rules he had been so determined to uphold ever since she'd met him. In the six weeks since they had said goodbye after Jericho's funeral, Will seemed to have become harder and softer all at once. Perhaps a more accurate way to describe the difference would have been that he seemed to have undergone a profound metamorphosis in which the identities Maya knew he labored diligently to keep separate – Will Traveler, Daniel Taft, whoever else he had been on missions and in real life – had at last blended together, with or without his conscious consent.

The result was an amazing combination of passion and restraint, tenderness and ruthlessness, dutifulness and rebellion. Maya could tell by looking into his blue-green eyes that everything had changed for Will, that a good deal had changed _about _Will.

Truthfully, it frightened her. It frightened her because she didn't understand why the change had occurred, or what it meant for them as a couple, or how they were supposed to go on from here.

Will appeared to pick up on Maya's confusion. Sighing, he stroked her sides with his fingertips, sending delicious shivers through her, and brushed kisses through her hair. "I know we've got a lot to talk about," he admitted. "There's some…stuff I need to tell you, stuff we have to figure out. But let's just stay here for a minute, okay? Let's just stay right like this. Just for a minute."

Recalling how she had felt the morning of Jericho's funeral, how she had dreaded leaving the safe circle of Will's arms, Maya readily acquiesced, anxious to comfort Will as he had comforted her. She nuzzled her nose into his neck, some of her trepidation melting away as he ducked his head to capture her mouth in a long, lingering kiss. The moment ignited, the kiss deepening; soon Will was pressing down on top of her, his lithe, muscular body stretched over the length of hers. For Maya, the world and its troubles faded away once more into a haze of newly-discovered pleasures.

Later, wearing Will's Yale tee-shirt over her jeans, Maya fixed them a light supper of pasta salad and garlic bread while Will uncorked a bottle of cabernet. As they moved around her small kitchen, they took advantage of every opportunity to brush against one another, unable to keep their hands off of each other or to wipe the smiles off of their faces. Maya had known it would be amazing to make love with Will; she hadn't known it would set her every sense on fire, leaving her with a wonderful full-body tingle each time he glanced her way.

As they sat down to eat, however, Maya sensed that Will was ready to talk. She ordered herself to focus, to stop acting like a lovesick teenager for at least a while, because whatever Will had to say, she knew it was very, very important. Life-altering, even.

"I came up on the train this morning because I wanted to check on a few things," Will began, sipping his wine a bit faster than usual, betraying his nervousness.

Maya tensed. Anything that nettled Will's remarkable aplomb had to be serious.

"Maya, something happened last week, something I can't tell you all that much about, but it made me realize that my loyalty to my employers has been called into question."

Maya experienced a wave of panic that left her light-headed. By force of will, she managed to remain calm. "Are you in danger?"

_They can't take him away from me. I won't let them. I'll die first._

"Not for the moment, no," Will reassured her. "But I do think I'm being watched."

He hesitated, obviously bracing himself for Maya's reaction to his next words. "And so are you."

Apparently, Maya's response was decidedly anti-climactic compared to what Will had expected. "I know," she answered truthfully. He looked so adorably astonished that she couldn't resist chiding him, "What, you think I haven't learned a few things from watching you?

"I started noticing it this summer, before you even left for the first time, how I'd get this creepy-crawly feeling all over, the way you do when someone's staring at you," Maya went on, becoming serious once more as she explained how she had known her life was no longer entirely private. "And since then I've noticed a lot more out-of-town visitors to the shop, people who just kind of, I don't know, they kind of give me the willies, if you know what I mean."

She couldn't suppress a small shudder. Accepting the invasion of her personal life didn't mean she enjoyed it.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Will appeared more hurt than angry that she hadn't come to him with this issue.

Shrugging, Maya replied evenly, "I figured you either knew about it and didn't tell me because you were afraid of freaking me out, or else it was something you couldn't do anything about anyway so there was no need for me to get you all upset over it."

_Reading between the lines here, sweetie, I love your protectiveness but I am a big girl. Some things I can handle on my own._

Will let it go, though Maya suspected he wanted to lecture her on the importance of apprising him of any espionage-related developments. Instead, he resumed his story.

"I came here, to the house, first today, thinking you'd be at the store. The house is clean – no audio or video surveillance. I went over every room three times, right down to the wiring.

"But the store," Will leaned back in his chair, shaking his head to indicate that the news was not good, "the store is definitely under surveillance. They don't have video, but they do have audio recorders on the cash register and in that little flowerpot you keep in your office, on top of the biggest filing cabinet. Oh, and the phone's tapped, too," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Maya tried to process what Will was telling her. By "surveillance," she had assumed he meant a few agents like himself popping by to check up on her now and again; she hadn't considered that somewhere, in some dark and windowless little room as Maya imagined it, strangers were listening to her every word.

Understandably presuming that Maya was prepared for the revelation, given her nonplussed reaction to his earlier announcement, Will proceeded matter-of-factly, "I think the surveillance at the store is probably just routine, probably something they did as soon as I left for New Haven. They'd have wanted to be sure you weren't tempted to tell anybody about what we were doing once I was gone, thinking nobody would know what you were up to.

"But I'm not banking on that being the case," Will concluded gravely, sitting forward to take another draught of wine. "I'm gonna teach you how to sweep the house, and I want you to do it once a week from here on out. And I'm going to establish a clean room down in the basement, so we've always got someplace to talk."

Mind whirling, Maya held up a hand to interrupt Will's monologue. Sweep the house? Establish a clean room? It was all too much to take in; it was all happening too fast. Only that morning she had been eagerly anticipating a blissful month of time alone with Will. Only hours ago she had been swept up by a heat of passion such as she had never known before. And now Will was telling her the rules had changed.

Again.

"I don't understand."

Too agitated to sit still, Maya pushed back from the table and paced around the kitchen. Will remained seated, pouring himself another glass of wine as he watched her, wordlessly, his expression guarded.

"Will, you're talking like you've got something to hide – like you've done something wrong, something you don't want these people, whoever they are, that you work for to find out about. What's happened? What have you done?"

Will swirled the wine in his glass and gazed down at his bare toes. "I haven't done anything."

He paused before adding, rather ominously, "Yet."

Maya swallowed with some difficulty around a rapidly-forming lump in her throat. On the verge of hysterical terms, she managed to ask calmly, "So what you're telling me is that this isn't about you and me anymore? This isn't about us getting involved? That's not what you're afraid they'll find out about?"

"It is sort of, yeah."

Abruptly, Will stood and crossed the kitchen, caught Maya around the waist where she stood next to the sink, and stared hard into her eyes, his face inches from hers. Caught off-guard, Maya clutched his arms, trying to balance herself, trying to remain upright as she felt the world cracking and rolling beneath her.

"Maya," Will's voice was raw with what could only be described as desperation, "what I'm going to ask you is completely unfair. But if I wanted out – if I had a way to get _us _out, away from the people I work for, for good – would you come with me?"

The air froze in Maya's lungs. She couldn't begin to fathom what would have occurred to make Will reach such a radical decision.

Will, who had once stood not ten feet from the spot where he was standing now and declared his undying loyalty, his unwavering commitment, to his mission, to his work, to his employers.

More than the rules had changed, Maya realized, numb with fear. They were playing a whole new game.

As she tried to orient herself, to achieve some sort of perspective on what exactly Will was asking her to do, he released her and turned away, bracing his palms on the counter and staring out the window into the wintry blackness. Maya hovered behind him, longing to reach out to him but not sure, suddenly, if that was what Will wanted. She wished she knew what to do, what to say, to ease the pain he was so obviously suffering, yet so long as he insisted on speaking to her in riddles and half-truths, she wasn't sure how to help him.

She wasn't sure how to answer him.

"I know it's a selfish thing for me to ask," Will said, his words directed at the window, his voice so desolate it sounded almost hollow. "I know you have a life here. Friends. Memories. Your house. Your store.

"But Maya," he swiveled back around to face her, "you have to understand, they're never going to let you out of this agreement you made. They'll bleed you dry of whatever usefulness you can offer, and then they'll 'dispose' of you. That'll be how they describe it, like taking out the trash. And to everyone here, everyone you've ever known, you'll just be gone. You'll just disappear."

Maya shivered. Not for the first time, she noted how much more pleasant Will's sugar-coated version of life was than his brutal honesty. Still, she appreciated being told the real score, that her involvement in his world would not end when his mission did.

Will's words did not explain his sudden change of heart toward his employers, though. "I thought we were going to ask for permission to be together," she returned questioningly.

Surely she hadn't misunderstood his intentions – no, Maya decided, Will had been perfectly clear on what he wanted before he left for New Haven the last time. "I thought you were going to make it so I could be with you, help you with your work even," she pressed when he did not respond. "Did they say no or something?"

Will ran a hand through his hair. "I thought," he started, stopping again as he searched for the right words. "I thought – Maya, I thought if you stayed with me, if we made a life together, then everything would be okay. I thought I could keep you safe, make us both happy. But I-I can't…"

Will's voice broke. So did Maya's heart when she saw the tears sparkling in his eyes.

_My beautiful boy, what have they done to you?_

All concerns except for those about what was hurting Will were instantly vanquished from Maya's mind. She opened her arms to him, wrapping him in a tight embrace, cradling his head against her shoulder. Will did not actually cry, though Maya could feel his body trembling with the effort of holding back sobs. He clung to her like a drowning man grabbing onto a life preserver.

"I'll take care of you, Will." The words rose unbidden from Maya's heart; as she spoke them, she knew they were exactly what Will needed to hear. That strange, inexplicable sense of calm descended on her again, showing her the path, leading her, as Madame Morphea had said, toward the sun. "You don't have to be so strong all the time, not when you're with me. Sometimes, I can be strong for both of us."

"I know." Will kissed her cheek, blowing out a shaky breath as he recovered his composure. "You're the toughest person I know, Maya. It's just…what I'm planning to do, it's more than dangerous. It's practically suicide in some ways. But I know it's what I have to do. And even though it's completely selfish and unfair of me to ask you to get involved in this anymore than you already are, I just…I just don't know if I can do it if you're not with me."

Maya took his hand and pulled him toward the living room, her sudden clarity remaining, allowing her to be calm and collected while Will regained his footing. "Let's go sit down and you can start from the beginning," she instructed firmly. "The first thing I want you to do is tell me what's happened, or at least as much of it as you can, so I have some idea what we're talking about here."

Over the next few hours, seated beside her on the couch with his fingers linked through hers, Will related to Maya how he had reached his decision to repudiate the oath of loyalty he had taken to his employers and how he intended to bring about their getaway. He began with a vague yet nonetheless heart-breaking tale of a young girl's murder – his handler's daughter, Will said, the grief in his eyes unmistakable.

His handler, Will explained, was a man he had always admired and looked up to, a man who had seemed to have it all. A man Will had patterned his own future upon. A man, as it turned out, who had done nothing to save his daughter's life and who would now do nothing to bring her killers to justice.

"I thought that would be us someday," Will confessed, sounding abashed by his naiveté. "I thought that would be the perfect life, the big house and the right address and all that. But it's just another kind of trap they build for you, really, another way to make you do what they want regardless of right or wrong. I feel so stupid for not seeing that."

Maya smoothed a stray lock of hair off of Will's forehead. "You're not stupid for having dreams, Will," she assured him gently. "I'm sure this person, your handler, only showed you the good parts of his life for a reason. You're not stupid for trusting someone you thought was on your side."

Despite her outward serenity, though, inside Maya was seething with rage at these nameless, faceless people who would offer a lonely kid (somehow, she knew that was what Will had been when his employers approached him) a life of ease and refinement, a life of belonging and importance, all the while knowing no such world existed. These people were beyond brutal. Brutality Maya could at least comprehend, in its primitive simplicity.

These people, they were beyond diabolical, sitting up in their webs spinning out one intricate manipulation after another in service of their unknown ends.

Will went on to briefly describe his "interrogation" while Maya instructed herself to focus, to save the righteous anger for later. He was careful not to provide much detail, mentioning a few times throughout their conversation that Maya would be safer the less she knew; she didn't necessarily buy that, but she chose to trust Will's judgment. In any event, he told her enough for Maya to understand both why he had feared she was under surveillance – it seemed Will was, too, in New Haven – and why he had decided to break the vows he had been so committed to just weeks before.

Part of Maya wanted to insist that they pack up right then and there and run for it. She didn't care that they had no money, no plan, no concrete means of survival; gut instinct, women's intuition, her sixth sense, whatever such feelings were called, warned her that if she and Will didn't get out now, they never would.

When she broached this possibility, however, Will immediately rejected the idea. "It's too late for that, Maya. They're watching us – they may not have video cameras in your house yet, but they are watching us. We wouldn't make it out of Deer Harbor before they got to us. Trust me."

"Then how can you gather any evidence against them? How can you make arrangements for us to escape, ever, if they're looking at everything we do and listening to everything we say?"

As on the night when Will had explained to her why they couldn't become romantically involved, Maya didn't doubt what Will was telling her. She just wanted to understand.

"I have to regain their trust," Will responded. "That's why we can't touch the audio surveillance they've set up in your store. We have to let them think we've got nothing to hide. And that's why I have to go back to New Haven when the spring semester starts and keep on pretending to be a dutiful operative."

Maya detected a familiar gleam in Will's eyes as he spoke, the same look she had seen when he was bringing Will Traveler's identity to life, making him pitch-perfect for the New Haven op. She found it undeniably comforting to see him applying those same remarkable skills, with the same single-minded focus on success, to this situation.

Will went on to relate his plan for returning to Yale and affecting to carry out his assignment to the letter. In the meantime, though, he told her that he would also be both amassing proof of his employers' plots, proof that he could use if he ever needed leverage against them to secure his own or Maya's safety, as well as seeking the help of a "benefactor," as he put it, to arrange their flight from his employers once the mission was over.

"And who is this 'benefactor'?" Maya inquired, never expecting Will to actually tell her.

"Carlton Fog."

So the game truly had changed.

Maya pounced on Will, throwing her arms around his neck and smothering him with kisses. Falling backwards onto the couch cushions with her on top of him, Will began to laugh after a startled second, happily submitting to the sudden attack.

"What was all that about?" he demanded when Maya stopped kissing his cheeks, mouth, and forehead and stretched out beside him, gazing adoringly into his face.

"I knew you couldn't do it," Maya replied smugly. "I knew you couldn't let Jay and Tyler be framed for some awful crime. It's just not who you are, Will."

Maya felt at peace with their situation – illogically, given how perilous it was about to become – for the first time since she had met Will, when he was still Daniel Taft. Because now, having Will for herself would at last not involve the destruction of innocent lives.

Will traced Maya's jaw with his index finger. "You think you know me pretty well, huh?" he asked, eyeing her mouth in a way she knew promised wonderful things to come.

_Yes, _Maya wanted to say, _I know you, Will Traveler. I helped create you. You didn't realize it at the time, but to let me do that, you had to show me a whole lot more of your real self than you ever intended to – more than even I realized at the time. And I knew these were orders you couldn't follow. _

Maya also knew, though, that Will was holding something back. Ordering herself to focus, she retorted, "I think I know you well enough to know you haven't told me everything yet. So don't change the subject."

Will sighed, apparently resigning himself to the fact that Maya was learning his tricks. "To some extent, I do have to complete my mission," he cautioned her. "I have to go forward with the operation so my employers don't suspect what I'm up to, that I'm walking away. But," he confirmed, looking as relieved as Maya felt, "I'm pretty certain that I can supply Fog with enough evidence to clear Jay and Tyler's names after you and I are gone. It's not a hundred percent, I'm not gonna lie to you, but I do think it's the best plan for giving everybody a shot of walking away from this alive."

"And in exchange for the evidence to prove his son's innocence," Maya said slowly, catching onto the real brilliance of Will's scheme, "you're going to ask Carlton Fog to get us out. Away from your employers."

"Close. I wouldn't trust Carlton Fog with any details about my out," Will corrected her. The brittleness in his tone made Maya wonder (though she knew better than to ask) what history existed between the spy and the billionaire. "In fact, I don't mean for him to know about 'us,' or more to the point about _you_, at all. But the information I'm offering, Fog'll pay well for it.

"You see," Will finished, sounding quite pleased with himself and his plan, an arrogance Maya found rather adorable, "all it really takes to disappear is patience, careful planning and enough money. I've got the first two covered. Fog can give us the third."

They talked on into the night about the risks Will would be running, about the care they would have to take in all conversations outside of Maya's house not to tip off Will's employers to their intentions, about Will's idea to buy and stock a boat they could live on until things settled down enough for them to make more permanent arrangements. As she watched Will working out the details, considering every possible angle and complication to the ideas they tossed around, Maya suddenly remembered something her father had said to her about his relationship with Lorelei, toward the end of his illness when father and daughter had for once spoken openly about Lorelei's addiction.

"You only saw her fall, Maya," Thomas had said, trying to explain why he had never given up on his wife, never taken his children and left despite the pain her addiction had caused them all. "But I saw her fight."

Maya had seen Will fall. She had seen him ruthlessly, selfishly plan and act to secure whatever he wanted, whether that was a victory for his employers or leverage to ask for a future for the two of them. She knew he had done awful things, unconscionable things, without any real remorse for who was hurt, so long as it wasn't anyone he loved.

She understood that now, she was seeing Will fight. Fight not only the way he had been trained to look at the world as an agent – to see the ends as always justifying the means – but also the way she intuited he had learned as a child to look at life, as a cutthroat competition in which survival was achieved by those who took down anyone or anything that stood between them and what they wanted.

Will was looking for the light, leading them out of the shadows at last. And even though she understood that it could cost her all she had, even her very life, Maya was prepared to follow.

Sometime around dawn, they trudged up the stairs together, both equally exhausted from the day's events. Once they lay down together in Maya's bed – no need keeping up pretenses anymore, for which Maya was thankful – and the darkness shrouded them from one another, Will turned to her and said uncertainly, "Maya?"

"Mmm-hmm?"

"You know that when we leave here, it'll be for good, right?"

Will sounded anxious that this point be made clear, that Maya have no illusions about the finality, the permanence, of her decision. At the same time, beneath his words she sensed his fear that such a realization might cause her to change her mind and abandon a future with him for the life she already had.

"You'll have to leave behind everyone, everything, forever," he stressed, nothing but his somber eyes clearly visible in the dark. "No looking back, not ever."

Wishing Will could see into her heart, Maya attempted to convey the magnitude of her love for him in a smoldering kiss. When she pulled back, she told him firmly, "You are my everything, Will. You're the one that I love."

Shortly thereafter, Will fell into a deep, peaceful sleep, a soft, contented smile playing on his lips. Maya lay watching him for a long while, wondering what losses had left him so vulnerable, so convinced that everyone would leave him in the end. She found that she could handle not knowing for the moment; if things went according to plan, she would have the rest of her life to probe the mystery of Will Traveler.

But not now, Maya determined, as sleep finally overtook her. For now, mysteries could wait; for now, the fact that she was with Will, that they were together, was all that mattered. The next four weeks were theirs, and she meant to make the most of them.

Maya thought she understood now why fate had directed her to that St. Christopher's medal: Will was not only going to need protection in the weeks to come, he was going to need, she knew, a tangible reminder of her love for him, of her commitment to the choice they had made. She meant to ensure that by the time Will departed again for New Haven, both of them would have some wonderful, sunny memories to carry them through the dark months ahead, until they were finally free of the shadows for good.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15:**

"**Peace"**

Over the next three weeks, Will took a much-needed break from the world of espionage. Normally bored and irritable when he wasn't focused on an assignment, as he acclimated to the slow, easy pace of life in Deer Harbor, Will thought he finally understood why Joseph had always been so insistent that his operative find ways to decompress, to shut off being an agent. For the longer Will went without worrying about New Haven or the Partners or his and Maya's escape, the more clearly he seemed to be able to think, the more renewed and recharged he felt.

It was like the gypsy fortune-teller had said: Maya was home for Will, his safe place to step out of the world and find renewal.

As always seemed to be the case when they were together, Will and Maya quickly fell into an easy, comfortable routine. The pre-Christmas rush was a busy time for her at the store; Will wished she could stay at the house with him, but he appreciated how important the business was to her, personally as well as financially, so he insisted that she not abandon her responsibilities at the shop to entertain him. And he found ways to entertain himself, anyway – or, more to the point, ways to make himself useful.

Maya's house needed work. Will had noted this from the moment he set foot inside the Sanders' homestead in July. Raised by a man who staunchly adhered to a doctrine of self-sufficiency, Will, in his childhood and adolescence as Jon-Michael Davis, had learned to be an amateur plumber, carpenter, electrician, landscaper, roofer, and mechanic. He could not recall a time when Michael Davis, Sr., had ever called a professional to their modest Virginia home to make any sort of repair, other than perhaps an exterminator one summer. Some of Will's happiest childhood memories were of helping his father complete household projects like installing built-in bookcases in the den.

So while Maya worked, Will created a "honey do" list for himself and set about making her life a little more comfortable. On his second day in Deer Harbor, Will drove Maya to the bookstore in the morning and took her Jeep on to Augusta, where he collected all of the handyman supplies he would need and ordered her a new hot water heater, washer, and dryer to be delivered the next day. He paid for all of this himself; Hometown controlled most of its agents' financ3ees, but Will had some money of his own, left over from his father's life insurance policy, that Hometown had never been given access to. He was certain they watched the account, of course, so in his weekly report to Joseph, he simply stated that he was taking some time to step back from the operation while doing some much-needed work around his asset's house that helped take his mind off the mission.

Joseph's reply was equally simple: _Good. Don't electrocute yourself, though – we need you. Happy Christmas._

In spite of his anger and disgust at Joseph, Will had to smile at that.

Fixing up Maya's house also provided Will with the perfect cover to establish a clean room in her basement. A "clean room," as he explained to Maya over a delicious dinner of steaks and baked potatoes on his second night in Deer Harbor, was a room protected by counter-surveillance equipment, devices which wiped clean recording devices and jammed wireless signals, preventing them from transmitting their data. Will doubted the basement – nothing more than a cramped, damp, cobwebbed hole beneath Maya's kitchen floor, really – would be a hot-spot for surveillance in Hometown's estimation anyway. Nevertheless, knowing he could never be too careful where the Partners were concerned, he took care to conceal the "bug jammers" (as they were called in the trade) he had made before leaving New Haven in places where Hometown's security teams would be highly unlikely to look, such as in the wall behind the new hot water heater and inside a broken floor lamp Maya (for some inexplicable reason) kept stored beneath her stairs.

The rest of the house Will didn't dare protect from surveillance. If Hometown suspected that he and Maya had anything to hide, well, that would be that. So long as Maya was careful to sweep the house each week as he had shown her, however, and so long as they were careful in what they said to one another whenever they weren't in her basement, Will thought they should be safe to communicate in a mostly-normal fashion anywhere in the house.

The most Hometown was likely to discern was that their operative Daniel Taft didn't spend the cold winter nights alone while staying with his asset. But having taken the plunge, Will had decided that making love to Maya every night was a risk he was willing to run.

Maya was more than worth it.

As Christmas Eve approached, Will realized that he was looking forward to the holiday for the first time since his father had died. Michael Davis had not been a demonstrative man, yet he and his son had enjoyed a close, loving relationship, one not marked by the usual power struggles and emotional unavailability of father-son dynamics in suburban America. Will, in his life as Jon-Michael, had left for the Edon Academy boarding school at the age of six; from then on, he had only lived under the same roof with his father for three weeks at Christmas and eight weeks in the summer. They had packed a lot of memories into those short times. Looking back, Will wondered if his father, a former Marine who had joined the Secret Service at the tender age of twenty-two, had always known he wouldn't live to see his son grow up and so had tried to leave Jon-Michael as many good times to hold onto as he could.

Christmas they had spent in Boston, every year. The Davis family was originally from South Boston. During his childhood, Will's grandmother (Goldie, everyone had called her, including her children and grandchildren), his grandfather (Papa, he had been known as), and his father's younger sister Alice, who had been born with Downs syndrome and had always lived with her parents, had still resided there, in a run-down house on a run-down street in a run-down neighborhood. Will had not belonged among the Southies anymore than he had among the working-class kids in Arlington, but he had never felt anything other than welcomed and loved at his grandparents' house. As the only grandchild, he had been incredibly spoiled during those visits as well, especially by Goldie and Alice, who made over him like he was to be the next Einstein.

"A doctor," Goldie would often declare at some point during the Christmas feast, once her grandson was eleven and had announced his life-goal to work in medicine (which had seemed like a sure-fire way to be both rich and respected, in Will's book). Her South Boston accent would deepen right along with her warm, grandmotherly smile as she lifted her glass to him across the table. "Can you believe it, Papa? We're gonna have a doctor in the family."

Alice would clap her hands then, grabbing Will's neck in a quick hug. "A doctor," she would repeat, her childlike eyes wide with amazement. "You'll be a good doctor, Jon-Michael, and then you can take care of all of us."

Since joining Hometown, Will had compartmentalized those memories. The pain of losing his father, of being summoned out of his final exam in World History late one June afternoon to the headmaster's office where a solemn detail of Secret Services agents had informed him of Michael's death, had been so overwhelming that Will had jumped at the chance to push the grief deep down inside of himself where he did not have to experience it. In blocking out the pain, though, Will now understood, as he watched Maya coping with the loss of her brother and the still-raw wounds of her parents' deaths, he had also closed his mind to the happiness he had once known.

By the time Michael had taken the bullet intended for Senator Grant, Goldie, Papa and Alice had all been gone: Papa to prostate cancer when Will was thirteen, Alice to pneumonia two years later, and Goldie to a sudden heart attack mere months before Michael's demise. On the day Jack Freed had approached Jon-Michael Davis inside the small Arlington home where a troop of ladies from Michael's parish had been hosting a funeral dinner, the intended Hometown recruit had been completely alone in the world, his mother having absconded when Will was too young to even remember her. And Hometown had seen to it that Will remained just as alone from there on out. They had discouraged real connections, real relationships, separating him from Alex once his training was over, allowing him only the most limited access to Joseph and his family, insisting that he work alone, that he live alone, that he act alone.

With time to ponder such questions, as he installed a new faucet in Maya's shower or replaced the creaking, warped boards in the staircase or chopped wood for the fireplace, Will wondered if perhaps meeting Maya had affected him so profoundly because he had been alone for so long. He had known the instant he saw her standing behind the counter of her shop that she was different, that she was special; he wasn't normally given to silly, sentimental beliefs like "love at first sight," yet he nevertheless admitted to himself that something, something elemental in his being, had begun to change at that very moment. Would that have happened if he had not recognized in Maya a kindred spirit, someone equally adrift and unloved?

Will supposed it didn't matter. He was so in love with Maya now, how it had all begun was a moot point.

He was only concerned now with how it would end.

Will was no fool: He recognized that trickery and manipulation were the life-blood of Hometown; using those same weapons against the Partners was a highly dangerous enterprise. Sometimes, Will experienced a prickly feeling on the back of his neck that made him wonder if he was already under more surveillance than he realized – which inevitably led him to question whether or not the Partners already knew what he was up to. Harland McCormick, the FBI agent who had helped sweep Jericho's murder under the rug, had in all likelihood reported back that Will Traveler seemed a bit too cozy with his asset in Deer Harbor, and Will couldn't deny that, where Maya was concerned, he had basically thrown caution to the winds. He would not have gone so far as to say he regretted that decision – especially not while he was feeling so deliciously _normal _for once, just like a regular guy who had been lucky enough to be loved by an extraordinary girl – yet Will was nevertheless savvy enough about the world of espionage to know that if the Partners were aware that he had broken one rule, they would be on the look-out for him to break more.

At one time, Will would have considered chucking the new plan, would have considered resuming his original, much safer scheme to complete his mission and ask permission to be with Maya once he had proven his loyalty and devotion to the Partners. But each time this possibility crossed his mind, usually on the heels of a stomach-clenching, spine-tingling wave of fear that he was leading Maya directly into a trap, Will would remember Sela Langdon's face on the night before Darian's funeral. At that point, he would decide all over again that, no matter what the risks, he could not – he _would not ­_– force Maya into such a life. He would not watch her fire slowly burn out; he would not watch her be worn down day by day under the strain of the lying and the pretending.

If the Partners knew that Will was planning to betray them, he reasoned, he was already dead. So he might as well see it through and hope for the best. Who knew? He might just get away with it and find a happy ending after all.

Will kept such thoughts at bay, however, while he and Maya prepared for Christmas. Out of extreme guilt over murdering Maya's brother as much love, Will wanted to make the holiday perfect for Maya. A few days beforehand, she showed him where the dust-covered decorations were stored in the outdoor shed; Will carried in what seemed like a dozen enormous cardboard boxes, dumping dead spiders and even a couple of rotted mice out of them before bringing them into the house. He then stood back in amusement to watch Maya work.

She had a knack for making every room feel festive and homey at the same time, Will noted. He accepted the odd jobs she gave him here and there – hanging a string of lights along the front of the porch (in sub-zero winds, no less, which Will found to be so physically trying he thought Hometown should at the task to their training protocols), or hauling a ladder up out of the basement so she could reach the top of the Christmas tree to put the star on. Mostly, though, Will sat on the couch or stood off to one side talking to Maya about nothing in particular while she brought the spirit of Christmas into their plain little house.

Yes, Will was definitely home.

On Christmas Eve, while Maya was finishing up her duties at "Have Books, Will Travel," Will made two phone calls, one to Queens and one to Manhattan. Both of Will's roommates knew he was in Deer Harbor, supposedly spending Christmas with old friends. Jay had opted not to return to L.A. – his mother was apparently vacationing with friends in St. Bart's anyway – but instead to brave the Doherty family Christmas; Tyler was staying with his brother at his Manhattan apartment, since Carlton, it seemed, would not be joining them, as last-minute business had called him away to Hong Kong.

Will suspected Carlton was actually avoiding his first-born. He decided to worry about why – and about how that "why" might affect his plans for walking away from Hometown without leaving Jay and Tyler behind as sacrificial lambs – after the holiday.

"Merry Christmas, Will! We miss you!" Kim called out from somewhere in the background while Will was talking to Jay.

Seated on Maya's couch, Will smiled into the phone. He missed Kim as much as he missed Jay and Tyler; they had developed a strong brother-sister bond since August. "Tell her 'merry Christmas, back'," he instructed Jay.

Apparently turning away from the phone, Jay dutifully called, "Will says 'merry Christmas, back'."

"So…How's it going?"

"I'll tell you all about it later," Jay replied gloomily, suggesting the Doherty clan was no more positive on Kim's California-bred, military-brat, lawyer-to-be boyfriend this year than they had been any other. "Oh, we opened gifts a little while ago. Thanks for the sweatshirt."

Will had kept his presents for his roommates predictable and inexpensive – Will Traveler was a nice guy, but not known for being especially talented in the gift-giving department. A Cubs sweatshirt for Jay and a Cubs cap for Tyler, those were his gifts to his roommates.

"No problem. Did Kim like the book?" For Kim's gift, Will, like any normal twenty-three-year-old male, had asked her boyfriend to advise him. Jay had directed him to a glossy coffeetable book entitled _Art Through the Ages _which, Will was glad to see, seemed like the sort of thing Kim would secretly covet but would never buy for herself.

"She's already started reading it," Jay answered. "You know Kim and art history – it was perfect."

On Will's next call, Tyler sounded as if he was having a much better time than Jay on his holiday – or at least, his Christmas seemed to involve far more copious amounts of alcohol. Will could hardly hear his friend over the music thumping away in the background.

"We're having a party," Tyler rather unnecessarily explained, fairly shouting into the phone. "Loved the Cubs cap, bro. Nell says it looks sexy. Did you open your gift yet?"

"No, not until the morning," Will answered back at equal volume.

"You'll love it, man. Listen, I gotta go," Tyler apologized. "If Maine gets too boring, beat it back here – we got room. Merry Christmas!"

Will smiled to himself as he hung up. So Nell Graham and Tyler Fog were celebrating Christmas together. Apparently everything was progressing as expected on that front.

Alone in Maya's house, it suddenly hit Will how much he missed his roommates. Being around them could obviously be stressful because of the pressure to maintain his cover, which had been especially difficult once he returned from Joseph's shortly before the term ended, yet all deception aside, Will really liked Jay and Tyler. He liked the life they all led together. He wasn't in any hurry to leave Maya, but he had to admit, the holiday would have been much happier if they could all have spent Christmas together.

Not for the first time, Will thought how nice it would have been if his cover were reality, if he really were nothing more than a grad student named Will Traveler, and Maya nothing more than the high school sweetheart who had become the love of his life. In that reality, he, Jay and Tyler could really have been best friends, and Maya could have been a part of their lives, just like Kim and Nell were.

For a moment, Will entertained the fantasy of actually being the young man he was pretending to be. They could have pooled their resources and rented a ski cabin in Colorado, three young couples enjoying a much-needed break from the pressures of work and school and impending adulthood; they could have gotten sloppy-drunk on eggnog and exchanged gifts after nursing hangovers with strong coffee and competed to see who could make it down the mountain fastest. Kim's scrapbook could have been filled with pictures that would be passed around at each wedding, snickered over in years to come by children who would wonder how in the world their parents had managed to look like such dorks even when they were young. Will didn't doubt for a second that his friendship with Jay and Tyler would have been life-long had Will Traveler been a real person; even now, knowing he would walk away someday quite soon, Will could hardly imagine life without his roommates.

Yes, the fantasy of Will Traveler had undeniable appeal for the young man portraying him. Knowing that real life was hardly if ever perfect, though, Will decided to be thankful for what he had, to be content with the hand he had been dealt. Anyway, wishing things were different only made the harshness of how things were more difficult to bear.

When Maya got in that evening around nine, she was so obviously exhausted from the crush of Christmas Eve shoppers that Will would not hear of her cooking dinner for them. Instead, he steered her onto the couch, removed her snow boots, brought her a tall glass of merlot and insisted that she stay put and prop her feet up while he played chef for once.

"You're too good to me," Maya called into the kitchen, where Will was rummaging around in cabinets looking for ingredients he actually knew how to combine into a meal. "You really shouldn't spoil me like this, you know. What am I going to do around here when you're back in New Haven and I don't have anybody to fix all the stuff that falls apart or to cook for me when I've had a long day at work, hmm?"

"Don't get too excited about my cooking just yet," Will warned, finally settling on tomato soup and grilled cheese, one of the few suppers he was reasonably confident he could prepare on his own – and that would be edible when he finished. "This is definitely not going to be one of your gourmet spreads, just so you know. But at least we'll be hungry for Christmas dinner," he added, eliciting a giggle from the direction of the living room.

They ate on the couch with plates and bowls balanced in their laps, working their way through a bottle of red wine that didn't exactly compliment the soup and sandwiches but served to take the edge off Maya's difficult day, Will could tell. In between bites, Maya filled Will in on the local gossip about who had been doing what last-minute shopping. Will had become inexplicably addicted to Maya's reports on life amongst Deer Harbor's residents; small-town life fascinated him, proving to be much seedier and far more tawdry than a boy from the suburbs would ever have believed. But Will also wanted to know about the people Maya spent her days around because they were what connected her to this place, to this town, which was so obviously a huge part of who she was.

"Maryanne Edgars definitely forgot about her mother-in-law, and that would have been a disaster," Maya related. "Oh, and this is so gross, but I'm pretty sure Charlie Wainwright – you know, that hunched-over little guy with the big nose who always wears the greasy coveralls? Well, anyway, I'm pretty sure he was buying a book on body piercing for this stripper he sees in Augusta."

For his part, Will described to Maya the holidays his roommates seemed to be having based on his earlier telephone conversations. "Tyler's drowning his family issues, it sounds like, no big surprise there," Will told her, grimacing a bit as he considered what a borderline alcoholic Tyler truly was, especially when it came to confronting his dysfunctional relationship with Carlton. "And I got the distinct impression that Kim's dad still thinks Jay's a putz, so I'm betting sunny California is looking better by the minute right now."

The evening ended, as usual, with Will seated at one end of the couch, feet resting on the coffee table, Maya reclined on the cushions with her legs extended into his lap. With the fire crackling in the hearth and snow falling thick and silent outside the windows – the Weather Channel was predicting an honest-to-goodness blizzard over the next forty-eight hours – Will had to admit it was a picture-perfect Christmas Eve.

In the spirit of the season, they had abandoned Poe's macabre tales in favor of C.S. Lewis' more wholesome _Chronicles of Narnia _for their nightly reading selection. Reading aloud to Maya was Will's favorite way to cap off a day. He loved her expression, how caught up she got in the stories, although he knew she had read most of them dozens of times. He loved how much she enjoyed hearing him read, was what it really came down to.

Tonight, however, Maya seemed less interested in the adventures of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," than she was in Will. As he read, Will could feel her gaze scorching his skin; the phrase "undressing you with my eyes" suddenly made sense to him, because that was exactly how he felt beneath her inspection – naked. It was not an unpleasant feeling, though it did make concentrating on the book rather difficult.

When Maya began to stroke the inside of his thigh with her bare toes, Will gave up the pretense, closed the book, and turned to look at her with mock sternness. "You're not listening," he scolded.

A devilish smile played on Maya's lips, reminiscent of her catty grin when she had noted the effect of her heart-stopping little black bikini on him that summer. Just as he had that day in Fairyland, Will found Maya so beautiful she literally made his heart ache.

_I would do anything – anything – for this woman. I can't believe she's mine._

Not typically a seductress, Maya appeared to be, for once, entirely aware of the fact that Will was wrapped around her little finger. She seemed to be intent on making the most of her feminine power for the moment: Affecting a pout, she began to draw her slender legs away from him, saying, "Well, if you'd rather read…"

Will caught her by the ankles. Pushing the cuff of her jeans up to the knee, he kissed along her right calf. Maya squirmed with anticipation when he tugged her hips down farther onto the couch, positioning her so that he could, as he soon did, stretch himself out on top of her.

She linked her arms behind his neck, brushing her nose along the underside of his jaw. Something that sounded like a purr formed in the back of her throat and nearly caused Will to rip her clothes off right then and there.

Enjoying their little lover's game too much to rush, however, Will restrained himself. "Maybe I would rather read," he retorted, teasing Maya with a few soft, quick kisses, turning his face away stubbornly when she tried to catch him in a real kiss. "What would you rather do, Miss Maya Rose?"

In response, Maya caught Will's lower lip in her teeth and bit down ever so gently. Desire flashed through him; Maya was effortlessly sensuous anyway, and Will had learned in the past week that when she deliberately dialed up the heat, he might as well surrender to melting in her arms. And that was precisely what he did then, as her lips moved onto his neck and she whispered into his ear a list of things she "would rather do," all of which sounded to him like excellent ideas.

The next morning, Will woke early as usual and, after finishing his morning run and shower, crept downstairs to place Maya's gifts under the tree. To his surprise, she had already beaten him to the punch: Looking incredibly sexy in a red satin robe (Will was fairly certain _that _was new), Maya stood in front of the fireplace with a cup of coffee in one hand and a small, silver-wrapped box in the other.

"Merry Christmas, Will," she greeted him sweetly.

Will plucked the gift and cup out of her hands and placed them on the mantle behind her. The satin slid enticingly between his fingers as he gripped Maya's waist, drawing her in close. "Do I get to unwrap you first?" he murmured, amazed by how instantly this girl could set his body on fire. Will had never been the kind of guy who couldn't say no, not until Maya came along.

Giggling when he nipped her earlobe, Maya wriggled out of Will's grasp. "So red robes and black bikinis, huh?" she teased, a wicked sparkle in her blue-grey eyes. "I'm making a list of your weaknesses, Will Traveler."

_That should be easy – anything that involves you…_

Will reined in his hormones and concentrated on enjoying Christmas Morning, which really wasn't all that difficult to do. Maya fixed a light breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs before they settled in on the couch to open their gifts.

Jay and Tyler had sent presents for Will. Jay's, as Will would have expected, was practical (and, given that Jay truly was on a shoe-string budget, as economical as a Cubs sweatshirt): a field-guide to the lakes, streams and rivers in the Northeast, accompanied by the note, _So you don't get lost in the woods. _Will and Maya shared a laugh over that; Jay and Tyler pretended not to, but Will knew they worried every time he set off on one of his weekend "field trips" to Maine that he would be eaten by a bear.

Though he didn't mention it, because the last thing he wanted was to bring up anything sad on Maya's first Christmas without her brother (well, at least her first Christmas since Jericho's untimely demise), Will was quite touched by Jay's gift. Jay believed that Will Traveler's father had drowned; he seemed to believe, and Will let him believe it because it worked for his cover, that Will's interest in marine ecology stemmed from an odd sense of loyalty to his father's memory. The book, Will knew, honored that loyalty, from one orphaned son to another. And while his father had not actually drowned, the sentiment nevertheless spoke to Will's heart, gave him one more reason to think of Jay Burchell as a brother.

Tyler's gift, also as expected, was extravagant – and completely impractical: a down-lined black leather coat, long enough to fall to Will's knees and cut so perfectly for his frame that, when he tried it on at Maya's insistence, they agreed Tyler must have gotten his measurements and had the garment tailored. "But I thought Carlton had cut him off," Maya protested, admiring the coat as Will modeled it for her in the living room.

"He's living on credit cards," Will confessed darkly. Tyler's refusal to admit that he was not the "moneyed" roommate bothered Will more each time he saw Tyler whip out the plastic; so far, he had been able to bite his tongue, but he hated to think of the black hole of debt Tyler was sinking himself into in the name of denial. "I feel guilty even accepting something so expensive."

"Don't," Maya advised. "He wanted to do something nice for you, so let him do it."

Because he could really see no other choice, Will decided to take Maya's advice and just be flattered that Tyler had given him such a nice gift.

Knowing that his roommates would send him off to Maine with presents and not wanting to open more packages than Maya, Will had purchased her several things. Actually, he had gone a little nuts at the mall, so that Maya ended up surrounded by close to a dozen packages. He loved how touched she was by every gift, no matter how small: She seemed to love the Yale cardigan he'd bought for her (Nell had taken to wearing Tyler's, and Will had found himself wanting Maya to have one for the simple, sophomoric reason that it would remind him that she was his girlfriend) as much as the second edition _Alice in Wonderland _he'd found at an antique bookstore in New Haven.

"This was my favorite story when I was a little girl," Maya squealed, throwing her arms around Will's neck. "How did you know?"

"I'm a spy, remember? We have our ways," Will teased, earning himself a playful smack on the shoulder.

Actually, while poking around Maya's house that summer, Will had come across a dog-eared copy of the book in Thomas Sanders' nightstand. Inside the front cover, written in a child's block-style letters, was the message: _For Daddy to read to me. _Will had known the message came from Maya – it was so typically sweet of her – and he had hoped, given the burden of guilt he still carried for murdering her brother, that such a sentimental gift might in some way make up for the pain of all Maya had lost.

"Now yours," Maya ordered, once she had spent nearly two hours making over each and every gift of her own. She looked a little nervous as she handed over the silver-wrapped box; Will understood, because he had one more present for her that was keeping his stomach tied up in knots.

_So much we still can't say to one another, so much we still can't do…_

Shaking away the momentary sadness, Will made a show of untying the ribbon on the box and pulling off the tape. Maya watched with wide, anxious eyes, a spot of color appearing on her cheeks when he finally removed the lid and lifted a delicate silver chain bearing a thick pendant from the blue-velvet interior.

Will's heart skipped a beat as he recognized the emblem: a St. Christopher's medal.

It was more beautiful, more masculine, than any medallion of its kind Will had ever seen. Even if it had been nothing more than a cheap aluminum charm, however, he would have been more touched by the gift than Maya could possibly have known.

Like most Southies, Michael Davis had been a devout Catholic. Religion had never really taken with Jon-Michael – the Edon Academy was a bastion of atheistic materialism – yet he had always respected his father's unwavering faith in the Holy Virgin, Jesus and the Saints. In fact, Will could not remember a time when he had not seen the very symbol he was now holding, a St. Christopher's medal, hanging around his father's neck; the necklace had been the parting gift Goldie had given her son the day he left to join the Marines, to keep him safe on his journey into a new life.

The last time Will had seen that medal had been the moment before the undertaker had closed the lid of his father's casket, when Jon-Michael Davis had placed a final kiss on his father's cold, lifeless cheek.

"If you don't like it, I can take it back…"

Will jerked back to the present at Maya's words. Realizing that he had been staring dumbly at the necklace, he blinked away his memories and turned a wide, heartfelt smile to her. "I love it," he said emphatically, pressing a kiss to her lips.

In the spirit of the day, Will decided to break protocol just a teensy bit more and offer Maya a little something of his real self, his real past, to let her know how much he did adore the gift. "My father used to wear one of these, everyday. My grandmother gave it to him. It's perfect. Thank you so much."

Maya's answering smile made whatever risk Will had taken in revealing even that tiny particle of his past well worth it.

After he clasped the necklace around his neck (he wouldn't be able to wear it in New Haven, since it might draw attention from the Partners or raise questions amongst his roommates about when Will the chemist had discovered religion, but he intended to wear it every second he was able), Will pulled from his backpack the gift he had been saving for last. Maya arched a puzzled eyebrow at him, as if to say, _Wait, there's more?_

"This is kind of a Christmas and birthday gift together," Will explained, "since I'll be back at Yale on your actual birthday."

"Oh, Will, you didn't have to get me anything else," Maya protested half-heartedly. Will grinned; she was like a little kid in her love of unwrapping presents. He would have bought her a dozen more simply for the pleasure of seeing her open them so eagerly. "I feel bad, only having bought you the one thing…"

Will's fingers moved reflexively to the medallion. "Don't. I love what you got me."

Maya blushed, looking quite pleased with her gift-giving skills. "Okay. So, one more gift – I wonder…" She held the box up to her ear and shook it gently. "Nothing rattling, so it's not jewelry…" She studied the size, weighing the package in her palms. "Kind of heavy, so it might be a book…"

Laughing, Will teased, "You know, you could just open it."

"Don't spoil my fun. Anticipation is the best part." But she had already begun removing the paper, too eager to wait any longer.

Will held his breath. He wasn't all that concerned about Maya liking the gift; he knew her tastes well enough to be fairly certain that she would. No, his fear was that, given the promises they had so recently made to one another, Maya would have her heart set on one of the few things Will wasn't able to give her just yet – an engagement ring.

He didn't know if he could stand to see the disappointment in her eyes if she opened the box expecting to find what he so desperately wanted to give to her. If that happened, her disappointment, no matter how gracefully covered, would be for Will yet another painful reminder of all the ways he might not ever be able to offer Maya the life she deserved.

Once the shiny wrapping paper fell away, however, Will saw immediately from the tears brightening Maya's eyes that, even if she had harbored some secret hopes for a diamond, she was more than touched by the tangible evidence of his love for her that Will was able to offer. "Will," she breathed, one hand fluttering to her heart while the other rested lightly atop the silver-and-ivory antique music box, "this is…this is the most beautiful thing anyone's ever given me."

The music box, carefully sought out through an art "dealer" (a fence, to put it bluntly) Will knew through Hometown, had been specially made in the early twentieth century as a wedding present for an English Duchess from her groom. The top of the delicate silver box, which played Puccini's aria "Un bel di vedremo" from _Madame Butterfly,_ was inlaid with ivory, into which was hand-carved an elaborate blooming rose.

_Maya Rose, _the pastor had called her at Jericho's funeral. Despite the awfulness of the situation Will had been taken by the poetry of his beloved's full name. Thus he had known when he saw the box, one of several options presented to him by the fence (who, Will had determined before approaching him, was discreet enough not to ask questions about the recipient and in the dark enough about Hometown to be a safe means of securing such a gift), that it was special, the kind of gift that could convey to Maya how much she meant to him, how far he was willing to go to bring beauty and happiness into her life.

But when Will had read the inscription on the inside lid of the box, he had known that it was more than special. He had felt like unseen forces were directing him to it – irrational, yes, yet like the feelings he'd experienced inside Madame Morphea's tent, Will had known that larger forces were at work in his life at that moment. It was as if the Fates had offered him this particular object as a means of telling Maya what he never found himself capable of putting into words.

More than anything, Will wanted Maya to know that underneath the exterior he presented to the world, within the soldier-spy he had made himself into shortly after losing his father, behind all of the lies and half-truths about himself, his work, his past and his sins he had to tell Maya in order to protect her, to make a future for them that might someday not involve so much deception – deep inside, where he couldn't let allow her to see fully, he wanted her to know that there was a man named Will Traveler. A man he was learning to be not as an assumed identity but as his truest self. A man who had been a child named Jon Michael Davis; who had chosen to be a soldier named Daniel Taft; who was slowly assimilating the best parts of Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog into himself; who couldn't help being just a tiny bit like Joseph Langdon and an even tinier bit like Jack Freed; who was evolving, growing, changing, into who he wanted to be because of a woman named Maya Rose Sanders.

A woman who had always known who she was, whether she believed that about herself or not. A woman who had seen, from the moment he had walked into her store as Daniel Taft, not only who he really was but also who he could be, if he was willing to try.

All of these things Will had seen in the music box's inscription. And as the tinkling notes of Puccini's aria filled the room, he saw all of those same thoughts register in Maya's lovely blue-grey eyes as she read the famous words of Shakespeare's Juliet to her doomed lover:

_"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."_

_You know who I am, even if you don't know my name. You know me better than anyone ever has, better than anyone else ever will – I can't give you my name but I'm giving you myself, the realest parts of me…_

Wordlessly, Maya closed the lid and placed the music box on the coffee table. Lifting both of Will's hands in hers, she drew him forward into a long, lingering kiss. "You're the one that I love, Will," she murmured against his lips, stealing his breath like always with her tender passion. "Nothing could ever change that, I promise. You'll always be my Will."

They fell slowly into one another then, sinking down into the couch cushions and gently making love while outside a heavy, blinding snow swirled through the frigid air and blanketed the roads and trees, insulating them from the rest of the world. Will welcomed the blizzard that would leave them virtually marooned in Maya's house for the next week, stranded together in a wintry paradise with no one to interrupt their happiness, no business or duty or orders to distract them from one another.

Later, back in New Haven, Will would look back on those weeks at Christmas as a much-needed reprieve before his plan to betray Hometown was fully, irrevocably set into action. Once he left Maya that January, he would open himself back up to the ruthless, conniving aspects of his nature that made surviving in the world of the Partners possible; he would resume weighing every word, every gesture, every action for its possible consequences, for its potential to end his life and Maya's and his roommates if he made a single misstep.

But for all of the danger, for all of the fear, that he would encounter in his last year and a half at Yale, Will would also find that he was prepared, that he was in fact almost eager, to move forward with the mission he had plotted for himself, to gather the necessary evidence against the Partners and to arrange his all-important meeting with Carlton Fog and to organize his escape with Maya. He would find that while the fear never really went away, while he would spend many sleepless nights staring at the ceiling of his bedroom in the Castle wondering if the Partners were onto him or if he could honestly hope to take on an organization as powerful as Homeland Security and win or if Maya would someday learn his terrible secrets and regret ever having met him or if Fog would come through for his son and Jay once the moment of truth arrived – despite all of those very legitimate fears, Will would find that having allowed himself to give his heart wholly and completely over to loving Maya would give him the strength to face those terrors without buckling under.

Will Traveler had always been, first and foremost, a soldier. The difference was, by the time he would leave Maya in Deer Harbor with a sweatshirt, a music box, and weeks of memories to remind her of his love – a St. Christopher's Medal tucked into his pocket to remind him of hers – Will Traveler would finally know that he had a cause worth fighting for.

It was no longer a cause of "truth and justice" vaguely defined by men and women whose true ambitions Will could no longer trust, could no longer align himself with. As Daniel Taft, he had managed to convince himself that those sorts of abstract ideas – patriotism, duty, freedom – were worth fighting for in and of themselves, were even worth dying for. Daniel Taft had never minded fiction; he had, quite on the contrary, thrived on it, because he had nothing else to live for. With Maya during those several snowy weeks in December and January, however, Will would learn what it meant to really know himself, to really know other people. In so doing he would find that living and dying for what was real, for what really mattered, was the only kind of life that made sense.

Will would return to New Haven a changed man. Although outwardly, he would out of necessity appear to be exactly the same, inwardly, he would be a much better soldier, a much more deadly opponent for the Partners, because he had something real to hold onto. He had the love Maya so freely and unconditionally offered him. He had the friendship and loyalty of two men he admired, Jay and Tyler. He had the dreams for a life well-lived his father had passed onto him. He had the memory of an amazing young girl named Darien who had adored him and who deserved to be avenged. He had people who were counting on him to protect them, even if they didn't know it. Perhaps more importantly than anything, though, at the end of the day, Will at last had a future of his own to fight for.

By the time he stepped onto the train bound for New Haven on the second day of a new year, Will would know what he had to do. His plan for walking away with Maya while providing Jay and Tyler with an out of their own would be solidified in his mind. He would recognize, with a mind-numbing certainty that would occasionally paralyze him with terror despite his bravery, the risks he was running by doing what was right instead of what was easy. But he would always find a way to the other side of the fear, because he would also know that he was finally ready to face the real world.

_Author's Note: The next chapter is going to skip ahead significantly, but it may be a little while in coming as I have "life stuff" to attend to. So think of this as a little "hiatus" as we move more quickly toward the end of the tale!_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16:**

"**Dance With the Devil"**

_Manhattan_

_Eleven months before Drexler Museum bombing_

Inside the luxurious Upper Eastside apartment, all was quiet. The dinner party to celebrate Fog Industries' latest acquisition of a multi-million-dollar cable television network had broken up more than an hour ago, shortly after midnight; the catering staff had packed up the caviar and the champagne and the lobster with the same invisible efficiency with which they had served the fifty VIP guests; the security detail Carlton Fog, CEO of Fog Industries, employed had conducted a final sweep of the apartment to ensure that no would-be robbers or assassins had managed to sneak inside a cupboard or hide out underneath a bed. Carlton Fog was alone again in his beautiful tower high atop the city, and he was reveling in yet another successful corporate buy-out by smoking a fat Cuban cigar on the terrace outside his bedroom.

Will watched from the darkness of the bedroom's walk-in closet as the sweet-scented smoke swirled around Carlton's head in the muggy, late-August air. His fingers dropped to the handle of the .9 millimeter tucked securely into the waistband of his black trousers – the trousers that, along with the long white jacket and shoulder-length black wig tied into a neat ponytail, had allowed him to blend in perfectly with the other anonymous members of the catering staff that night. Fog's security detail was good, but they were no match for a determined Will Traveler: Once the salad plates were cleared away, Will had simply disappeared into the crowd. No one had missed him; the catering staff was nothing more than a loose collection of quickly-assembled artist and rock star wannabes temping their way to their next meal. Undetected, he had made his way into the master bathroom, where he had waited patiently for five hours while crammed into an air-conditioning duct. The security personnel hadn't thought to check such a tight, uncomfortable space, as Will had predicted they wouldn't, because they apparently couldn't fathom anyone being willing to lie perfectly still inside a cold metal tube for hours on end just to rip off a corporate tycoon.

Patience, Will's training had taught him, wasn't only a virtue – it was a sharp-edged sword when applied correctly.

Besides, Will had happy thoughts to keep him company while he had waited out Fog's guests. He was on his way back to Yale after two weeks in Deer Harbor – two magical weeks of making love with Maya whenever he wanted to (well, almost whenever – he tried not to be one of "those guys" who was groping her constantly, even though he wanted to). So he had plenty of dreamy memories involving sweet-smelling blond hair, slender tanned legs and, yes, a little black bikini to keep his mind off the crick in his neck and the cramp in his right calf.

As a matter of fact, the last two weeks with Maya had been the icing on the cake for what easily qualified as the best summer of Will's entire life. For most of May, June and July, Will had been in New Haven with Jay and Tyler at the Castle, each of them plugging away at the credit hours needed to graduate the following May. Summer classes were challenging; meeting everyday and taking exams every week had nearly driven them all under. Yet somehow, they had managed to have a tremendous amount of fun, too, watching Cubs games, playing football in the yard, drinking beer at outdoor concerts, driving to the beach on several weekends with Kim, Nell and Rabbit (whom, Will suspected, had been invited along by Kim in the vain hope that the obviously-stalled romance between the science geek and the artist would reignite). No matter what happened in the coming months, Will would always cherish his memories of a surprisingly carefree summer – one topped off by a spectacular two-week stretch with nothing to distract him from the woman he loved.

But summer was over. It was time for Will to get back to work, in every sense of the word.

Now, alone with the man who had helped put in motion the events which resulted in his father's death, Will allowed himself to briefly entertain the fantasy of sliding his gun into his palm, creeping out onto the terrace behind his unsuspecting prey, and blasting a neat hole in the back of Fog's skull. A hole that wouldn't be so neat on the other side, where his smug, entitled expression would be blown cleanly away by the force of the bullet tearing through muscle and bone. They said hearing was the last sense to go; Will could imagine himself kneeling beside the bloodied corpse and informing Fog, while wearing his own triumphant smirk, of the crimes for which he had been executed.

Two things kept Will's gun holstered. One, Carlton Fog was Tyler's father; Will had already murdered a family member of one person he cared about, and he refused to carry the weight of Fog's death as he carried Jericho Sanders'. Two, Carlton Fog was going to serve a far greater purpose in Will's life alive than he possibly could dead, because he was going to provide the means by which Will and Maya could escape the Partners with a clear conscience, since Fog would also be the means by which Tyler and Jay were able to prove their innocence in whatever crime Will would be framing them for.

So Carlton Fog earned a reprieve for the moment, a stay of execution. But Will's hatred of the man was not lessened by the necessity of allowing him to continue drawing breath. Under different circumstances, Will knew, he would have killed Fog without a second's hesitation.

_Just like he sent that bastard to assassinate Senator Grant without giving a moment's thought to who might end up "collateral damage," the greedy son of a bitch…_

Well, Will decided, silently edging out of the closet and into the darkened bedroom, it would be sweet revenge of another kind to use Fog to affect the happy ending Michael Davis would have wanted for his son. Will supposed he could always hope that, when all was said and done, the Partners would decide to take Fog out for his betrayal. Tyler would be devastated, no doubt, but given how cavalierly Fog seemed to have handed his eldest child over to the wolves, Will thought Tyler might ultimately be better off without his father just like Maya was ultimately better off without her brother. And, of course, Tyler would also stand to inherit billions of dollars if Jack Freed lost his temper and slammed a bullet into Fog's cold heart…

Will once again checked his murderous fantasies. He needed to concentrate: He was taking a huge risk by approaching Fog, a risk that the other man would call down the thunder on a rogue operative the instant Will left the building; Will had studied his target enough to know that Fog would do exactly that if Will couldn't persuade him that turning against the Partners in this instance was in Fog's best interest. Will might have been a soldier above all, but Fog was a businessman through and through. He would weigh Will's proposal in terms of costs and benefits: If the benefit to him in saving his son was great enough, Fog could in all likelihood be counted on to do what Will wanted; if it wasn't, well, the jig was up and Will would be dead before he stepped off the train back in New Haven.

_Ready, set, go…_

"Good evening, Mr. Fog. Please, don't get up."

Will took a perverse pleasure in watching the normally unflappable Fog nearly jump out of his weather-treated suede lounge chair when Will materialized out of the shadows near the bedroom's French doors. True to form, however, Fog recovered quickly, drawing one last, long puff off his expensive (and illegal) cigar before flicking the stub casually over the balcony to the street some twenty stories below.

As Will walked calmly over to lean against the stone railing in front of his captive, Fog blatantly sized up the intruder. Will wondered how he looked to the older, wealthier man: He still wore the black trousers, but having dispensed with the wig and the white caterer's jacket, he wore only a simple black tee-shirt (into which was tucked the St. Christopher's medal Maya had given him, for luck) and a beat-up pair of black trainers. He was sure his hair was sticking up in the back; he knew his clothes and skin were smudged with dirt from being wedged inside the none-too-clean air-conditioning duct. The dismissive glance Fog cast over him reminded Will sharply of the way his teachers at the Edon Academy had always looked at him – like even his standard-issue school uniform was too shabby, not being complimented by a solid-gold Rolex or five-hundred-dollar loafers like his classmates'.

Fog's gaze became a bit less disinterested, however, when he noted the steadiness of Will's hand leveling the .9 millimeter at his heart. His appearance might have indicated "street hood," yet a man like Fog, who was firmly ensconced in the dark underbelly of all things corporate and shady, would know the difference between how a small-time criminal and a trained professional held a gun. Will's unflinching stance marked him unmistakably as the latter.

"So," Fog began, quite conversationally for a man with a gun trained on him, "who do you work for? Which one of my competitors has decided to off me this week – Hosokawa? DeWitt? Gawlik? Townsend?"

Matching Fog's easy manner, Will shoved the hand that wasn't holding the gun into his pocket and shifted his weight so he was resting one hip against the railing. The angle subtly allowed him to keep an eye on the bedroom behind Fog, where a security guard might appear for one last walk-through (though Will's recon told him the guards went home and stayed there after their final check of the night, per the privacy-loving Fog's orders), without turning away from his hostage.

"Sounds like you're a man with a lot of enemies, Mr. Fog. Lucky for you, I'm not one of them."

Fog arched an eyebrow at the gun in Will's hand. "That's not exactly an olive branch you're holding there, son."

Will's temper nearly snapped. _I'm not your son, _he wanted to bite out. _You killed my father, don't you dare call me "son."_

Now was not the time for such emotional displays, however. Careful to keep his expression and voice perfectly neutral, Will instead answered smoothly, "The gun's just to make sure I have your attention. I'm hoping I won't need to use it."

Fog grinned. "That's a lie."

He leaned forward slightly, the intensity of his gaze reminiscent of Tyler's when he was arguing some particularly complicated economic point. Will shoved aside the reminder of his friend; Tyler was nothing like Carlton, even if they shared chromosomes.

"But now you've got me curious. Everything about the way you're holding that gun says you want nothing more than to blow my head clean off my shoulders, and yet you've obviously come here to talk business. So what kind of deal is it you're looking for, son? What's more important to you than whatever reasons you have for wanting me dead?"

Wily old bastard, Will noted, impressed in spite of himself by Fog's intuitiveness. Will still had a few surprises up his sleeve, though, and he enjoyed watching the astonishment register in Fog's eyes when he replied coolly, "I'm surprised you don't recognize me, Mr. Fog. Didn't Jack Freed show you pictures of the man who's framing your son?"

A coldness settled over Fog then, a frigidity of emotion that served as Will's first warning that Fog was not a man to be trifled with, not an opponent to be underestimated as "soft" because of the luxury in which he lived.

"You're…?"

"Will Traveler," Will confirmed. He felt like enough of a smart-ass to offer a handshake. Except with Fog glaring at him in a way that suggested he was entertaining his own murderous fantasies, Will decided against lowering his weapon – better not to drop one's guard around a cornered tiger, even an aged one.

"You shouldn't have come here." Slowly, aware of the gun, Fog nevertheless stood, ignoring the fact that he was the captive and his captor had not granted permission for him to rise. In a true hostage situation, Will would have ordered Fog back into the chair and, if necessary, would have forcibly put him there (a kick to the kneecap tended to make people want to sit down, Alex had taught him that technique). Yet seeing how this wasn't a traditional captivity scenario, Will allowed Fog to remain on his feet. "I don't know what you hope to gain by coming here – "

"I'm told you're a businessman, Mr. Fog," Will broke in. "I am, too, of a sort. So I'm here to make a deal."

Against his every spy instinct, Will let the gun fall to his side. If Fog attacked, Will consoled himself that he could overpower the older man without the aid of a weapon. Anyway, personal safety aside, it was necessary for the success of Will's venture that he at some point engage Fog as equal, a man who could accept or decline his request. Taking the gun out of the equation seemed like a good first step to doing that.

Fog looked from the gun to Will, taking in the change in his captor's demeanor. "All right," he said at length. He turned toward the French doors leading back into the apartment and motioned for Will to follow him. "But let's do this inside. You never know who might be watching, and I doubt Jack Freed would approve of this little rendezvous."

Several minutes later, Will and Fog were facing each other across the marble-topped island bisecting Fog's surprisingly cozy, cherry-and-oak kitchen. Fog had removed his tuxedo jacket and tie; he stood in his sock feet with the cuffs of his white Armani shirt unbuttoned and rolled to the elbow, spooning caviar onto crackers out of a container of left-overs the caterers had placed in the fridge. Will sat on the other side of the island, perched on a tall bar stool like the ones in Joseph Langdon's kitchen, sipping from the bottle of Guinness Fog had offered and nibbling on the caviar-and-crackers Fog passed across to him. A stranger walking in on them, Will thought with some discomfort, would probably have assumed they were father and son, stealing a few minutes together at the end of a long day.

The .9 millimeter in Will's waistband, which wasn't entirely concealed by his untucked tee-shirt, might have posited another scenario, of course.

"You'll have to forgive my skepticism," Fog noted, glancing up from his culinary task to study Will. "It's been my experience that Hometown operatives are undyingly loyal to their cause. I can't quite shake the suspicion that I'm being set up here."

Will shrugged. "I used to be 'undyingly loyal.'"

"Then what? You found God?" Fog's condescending tone was softened by a quick grin flashed in Will's direction.

"In a manner of speaking," Will responded. He watched Fog cross to the refrigerator and fish out a plate of cold turkey to go with their caviar and crackers. "I guess you could say, I found out who God isn't."

"Ah." Fog smiled knowingly as he plunked the plate down between them and peeled back the plastic wrap. He pulled a few slices off with his fingers and indicated with a jerk of his chin that Will should help himself. "So you figured out that Jack Freed isn't the divine savior of the universe. Tell me, was that before or after you agreed to help him send my son to prison for a crime he didn't commit?"

The bitterness in Fog's accusation riled Will's temper, touching a nerve of guilt that never seemed far beneath the surface anymore. Still, he forced himself not to be provoked; he needed to remain in control of the meeting. "After, actually," was his honest reply, and Will could see he had made the right move – Fog respected the no-bullshit approach to business.

"I hope you're not expecting me to offer you some kind of redemption here, Will." Fog apparently saw no impropriety in addressing Will by his first name, which admittedly irritated Will a little; some respect for the fact that he was the one with the gun would have been nice. But, in the interest of getting what he had come for, he let it go. "I'm not going to tell you that what you're doing is for the 'greater good.' And I'm not going to explain to you why I'm allowing this thing to happen to my own child. And I'm not about to jump in on any half-baked plots to take down Jack Freed. So if any of that is what you're after," Fog concluded, polishing off his beer in a long swig, "you're wasting both our time."

Aware that they were reaching a critical point in their negotiations, where he would either persuade Fog that he was worth taking a chance on or would essentially sign his own death warrant by tipping his hand about what he had been up to since Christmas, Will rested his weight on his elbows on the countertop and regarded Fog evenly.

"I'm here for two reasons, Mr. Fog." Will pointedly referred to the older man with the respect Fog had refused to show him, a fact Will could see was not lost on his companion. "One, because I want out, and two, because I don't want to see Tyler or Jay Burchell go to prison. From where I'm sitting, you're the only person who's in a position to make both of those things happen."

Fog walked away, turning his back to Will while he retrieved two more beers from the fridge. "I just told you, I'm not interested in taking down Freed," he said, facing away from Will. "If you understood what it is that you're into, son, you wouldn't be interested in it, either."

Sela Langdon's words echoed in Will's ears: _"You really don't understand what you've gotten yourself involved with, do you, Daniel? My father was a part of it, and his father before him, and his brothers…This isn't just some black ops arm of the government you're working for…"_

Old money. Deeply-entrenched power. Conspiracy theories raged through Will's head as he watched Fog make his way back across the room, popping the tops on the beers as he did. Carlton Fog represented American aristocracy. The great-grandchild of a Russian immigrant who had legally changed his name from "Kesar Foka" to "Charles Fog" upon arriving in New York in the nineteenth century, Fog came from a long line of self-made men whose ambition – Kesar/Charles had made his fortune by virtually redefining industrialism in the Northeast – had been matched only by their patriotism. The Fog family tree boasted senators, governors, and generals as well as wildly successful entrepreneurs, influential lawyers and judges, world-renown doctors and scientists, and stunningly beautiful women who married incredibly wealthy men. Like the Langdons, like Sela's family, the Fogs were too well-placed to be involved in any measly cloak-and-dagger scheme. People like Carlton Fog would not waste money or influence trying to rule the world unless they had some assurance of success; Will had thought this the night before Darian's funeral when Sela had all but confirmed his suspicions that Hometown was merely one aspect of a much larger, much more complicated plot, and now, Fog's words awoke in Will again the fear that he might be facing insurmountable odds.

How could one person fight what seemed more and more like a long-standing organization intent on running the government from the shadows? How could a kid from Nowhere, USA, defeat the richest, most powerful people in the country?

_You're in it now. Your cards are on the table even if you haven't shown your hand yet – Fog knows you mean to betray the Partners or you wouldn't be here. So just get on with it. You win or you lose, but you can't walk away from the game anymore._

Buoyed by the realization that, whether or not he was walking into a trap of his own making, the path was already laid before his feet, leaving him no choice other than to follow it to its end, Will waited until Fog was looking at him again to say simply, "I'm not interested in taking down Jack Freed, or Hometown, or any other grandiose, patriotic notions. I told you what I want: I want out. I don't need to leave a trail of destruction behind me to do that. I just need enough money to disappear."

A smile twitched up the corners of Fog's mouth, a smile that said, _And here we come to it at last – money. _

"I see. And you think I should finance your great escape because…?"

"Because," Will drew in a deep breath, feeling like a diver about to leap from the highest point into a lake that might or might not be deep enough to break his fall, "I'm your only chance to keep Tyler out of prison."

Silence descended between them, blanketing the kitchen. Will sat perfectly still. Fog did not look at him; he looked at the countertop, as if absorbed in the pattern of veins running through the marble. His expression was unreadable. Will did his utmost to match the impassivity of the older man's features, despite the fact that his heart was pumping so violently behind his ribs he could hear nothing above the blood pounding in his ears. He couldn't remember a time when he had been in such an agony of suspense – waiting for Maya to decide if she loved him enough to accept the only, imperfect future he had to offer her came the closest, yet even then, Will had at least retained a sense of control over his own destiny.

Now, his life, and Maya's, and Jay's and Tyler's, were totally, completely in the hands of Carlton Fog. The man who was responsible for the death of Will's father. The man who had agreed to stand aside while his own child was sacrificed to the Partners' plans. And what made it all worse for Will was carrying the burden that he had deliberately delivered their fates up to this man's mercy.

Of course, Will understood the game well enough to know that Fog would not deny his request face-to-face. For starters, Will had a gun; if Fog said no out-right, it would only make sense for Will to shoot him point-blank and then run like hell to save himself before the Partners figured out what had happened. Thus Will's suspense came not only from waiting for Fog's decision but from knowing that once Fog declared his intentions, he, Will, would have to be very, very good at reading a notoriously skilled liar. For if Fog did falsely accept the proposal, and if Will could discern that, he would still have the opportunity to kill Fog (much as he didn't want to for Tyler's sake, Will wasn't about to die just so Carlton Fog could go on living) and make a run for it, head north as fast as he could to collect Maya and disappear as completely as was possible on limited resources.

The rented Lincoln Navigator a few blocks away, in which was packed a suitcase of clothes and a duffel bag of weapons and a briefcase of cash, represented Will's acknowledgement that his recruitment of Fog might spell the end of the mission. So too did the plane tickets to Geneva, in the names of Kyle and Lori Mason, tucked beneath the Navigator's front seat. So too did the letter to his roommates which detailed the danger they were in, stamped and ready to be mailed on the short walk to the rented car and currently hidden inside Will's left tennis shoe.

Will believed in hoping for the best and preparing for the worst, like his grandmother Goldie had often said. Or, as his father had put it, _Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition._

Finally, Fog appeared to reach some sort of decision. Lifting his eyes to Will's, who noted with a small measure of relief that the other man's direct gaze was not yet clouded by the intent to deceive, Fog tipped his beer to his lips.

"What'd you have any mind?"

Will grinned. Now they were talking.

Over the course of the next hour, as they worked their way through a third beer apiece before Fog switched them over to coffee and traded in the turkey-and-caviar for spice cake slathered in brandy-pear sauce, Will for the first time voiced to another human being what he had been up to for the past seven months. Since leaving Maya in Deer Harbor shortly after New Year's (although he was careful not to reference Maya, or the existence of any special person in his life, in even the most peripheral way, knowing Fog would pounce on the potential blackmail material), Will had amassed an impressive store of evidence against Hometown.

He had copied invoices from Three Continents Investing, the company that was financing Will Traveler's education at Yale (seeing as how his "fellowship" did not, technically, exist). He had collected together passports from previous assassination missions which, had he been following orders to the letter, he would have destroyed instead of hiding in various safety deposit boxes, out of an abundance of caution advised by Alex, who had shown him her own stockpile of fake IDs – her means of getting herself out, she had told him, if Hometown ever went belly-up and she needed to affect her own disappearance without their assistance. He had detailed his own financial records, the accounts under Hometown's control, which recorded payments for every mission, including every assassination, he had completed.

All of these materials and much more, Will assured Fog, were safely hidden in a place Hometown would never think to look. Will did not volunteer the locale to Fog, and Fog did not ask for it. Even if they should become partners, they both knew they would never actually trust one another; Will would keep his secrets, Fog would keep his, and their relationship would operate on a need-to-know basis that posed the least risk to both of them.

By the time he reached the part of his narrative where he explained to Fog the evidence he could offer for clearing Jay and Tyler, Will found that he was surprisingly relaxed in the other man's presence. It wasn't only the alcohol and the delicious food; it wasn't only that the meeting thus far was progressing exactly as Will had hoped it would. Fog had a straight-forward, easy-going manner that Will instinctively warmed to. He couldn't pretend that part of him didn't still want to pick up the gun and bash Fog's face in with it – the more Fog reminded him of Tyler, the more distinct those urges became, in fact, because Will suddenly realized how furious he was with Tyler's father for selling out his son, who deserved to be loved and protected. Yet all history aside, Will was surprised to find that he rather _liked _Carlton Fog.

Strange, how people had stopped existing in black-and-white, friend-or-foe terms since he had fallen in love with Maya, who always seemed able to find the good in people…

"This 'evidence' you're offering me," Fog put in, when Will paused to refill his coffee cup. "You keep talking about a video blog. You'll have to excuse the generation gap here, but I don't know what that is, precisely."

Will explained, "I told Jay and Tyler that I'm making a video diary about life at Yale, so they'd talk to me on-camera about stuff like the President and Congress, or foreign policy, or the military – you know, just conversation, the kind of thing you'd hear in any coffeeshop. All perfectly innocent until it's edited together in a certain way, and then it makes the two of them sound like zealots. It'll be the centerpiece of the case Freed will use against the two of them."

"And you can prove that this 'blog' was doctored?"

"I can give you the original video files, the unedited versions. The real videos will show that what Jay and Tyler were talking about had nothing to do with terrorism. And," Will added, stressing this last point, "they'll show that someone, somewhere, used those videos to make them look like criminals. That'll be your undeniable proof that the two of them were framed."

Will licked suddenly-dry lips. Of every scrap of information he had accrued about the Partners and Hometown so far, the videos of Jay and Tyler were the most damning pieces of evidence; they would prove that the United States government (or at least some high-ranking members of it) had been involved in framing two innocent people. The fall-out from such a revelation caused Will to shudder. He didn't like to dwell on the far-reaching consequences of his betrayal of Hometown. No matter how empty the vows he had made to Jack Freed's organization now seemed, Will still loved his country, and he did not relish being the vehicle for yet another national scandal, yet another reason for the American people to distrust their elected officials.

Fog seemed to read Will's mind, for he suddenly leaned back on his stool, folded his arms across his chest, and studied Will closely. As he did during debriefs when he knew his handlers were determining the truth of his words, Will placidly submitted to the scrutiny; he was not giving away all of his secrets to Fog, of course, but he also wasn't lying, and he wanted the other man to see that. Needed him to see it, in fact, so Fog would agree to join forces with him.

"You obviously understand that what you're proposing to do here could get you and me both killed."

Will nodded, holding Fog's gaze. "This isn't my first day on the job, you know. I may not be that old, but I've been doing this awhile."

"So have I," Fog retorted with a bemused grin, as if to say, _Don't try and educate me, kid, I've seen it all. _"In point of fact, I've been at this long enough to know that the moment these people, the Partners, get onto you, you're not going to last ten minutes, I don't care what sort of training you have. How do you plan on escaping?"

"I appreciate the concern for my well-being, I really do, but I think I'll keep the details to myself, thanks," Will rejoined sarcastically. He wasn't about to be tricked into revealing his out. "All you need to know is that by the time you come forward with the evidence I've got that proves Jay and Tyler's innocence, I'll be long gone."

"Details aside," Fog countered, undeterred from issuing what he apparently believed to be an important warning, "I'm guessing you know that walking away from these people isn't going to be a matter of buying a bus ticket with a fake driver's license. You may get away right at first, and you probably will, because you seem like a smart kid. But that's only the first step on a very long road."

In spite of himself, Will thought he detected a hint of sincerity in Fog's apprehension for his safety. He told himself not to be stupid; Fog had no earthly reason to care whether or not Will Traveler, the agent framing his son for an act of terrorism (or worse), survived to fight another day. Fog was playing an angle, probably reading Will's tendency to respond on an emotional love to parental guidance (just like he had with Joseph, who had worked that avenue so effectively in drawing Will ever more deeply into Hometown). Will steeled himself against it, against believing that Tyler's father might be a different sort of man than he had always imagined.

Fog went on, "Once the truth comes out, some very powerful people are going to want you dead, very badly. You can run as far as you want, as long as you want, but these people will never stop looking for you. And trust me, son, they have the resources to find just about anyone, anywhere."

"I know how to disappear, Mr. Fog. I just need the money to do it."

"My money, you mean." Fog appeared to be on a precipice, torn between admitting the brilliance of Will's plan as well as the thoroughness of his work so far – Will was pleased in spite of himself that Fog seemed to think he was a capable operative – and chalking the whole scheme up as madness. "I'm not in the habit of making poor investments, Will. What assurances do I have that you'll actually hand this evidence over to me once I give you the money you want?"

_Ready…_

_Set…_

_Go…_

Staring straight into Carlton Fog's bluish-green eyes, mirror images of Tyler's, Will declared, "Because I'm going to give you the evidence tonight, Mr. Fog, before you ever give me a penny."

_Score one for the green kid. _

Fog was dumbfounded. Will smirked; he enjoyed getting the drop on his "superiors," which Fog, with his vast and intricate knowledge of deception, seemed to qualify as.

"You're – you – why would you do that?" Fog sputtered.

Will went in for the kill, dialing up the Traveler earnestness and combining it with Daniel Taft's practicality. He began with the Taft approach. "First of all, it's the only gesture of good faith I can offer you that will convince you I'm the genuine article," Will replied evenly. "What I've revealed to you tonight is more than enough reason for the Partners to kill me, and they'll definitely take your word over mine if you accuse me of coming to you with this kind of a plot, so I don't have anything to lose by actually handing over the evidence that I do have.

"Secondly," Will switched to the Traveler approach, calling to mind every happy memory of Jay and Tyler he had from the past year and allowing that brotherly affection to sound clearly in his voice, "I don't want Jay and Tyler to go down for this, whatever it is they're supposed to be accused of doing. They're good people. They've been good to me, they've treated me like family, like a brother. Even if I get killed for it, I owe it to them to try and save them. So I've gotta believe that if I give you this evidence, even if you hand me over to the Partners, you'll use what I give you to protect them when it comes down to it."

His salespitch finished, Will sat back and waited for Fog to decide his fate.

And Maya's.

And Jay's.

And Tyler's.

Instead of answering, Fog stood so abruptly that Will nearly knocked his bar stool over getting to his own feet. With a jerk of his head, Fog indicated that Will should follow him through the apartment; bewildered and more than a little unnerved, Will acquiesced, surreptitiously sliding the gun out of his waistband and holding it alongside his thigh as he kept a wary eye on Fog's back.

They entered a luxurious study not unlike Joseph's. Will immediately (and understandably, given the connotation of Joseph's study with debriefs) thought of hidden cameras inside the twelfth-century Chinese vase on the mantle above the marble hearth, of audio recorders secreted away behind the Picasso hanging over Fog's enormous desk. Apparently, he wasn't too far off the mark, because Fog pressed a finger to his lips, indicating that Will should remain silent, before turning his attention to a safe concealed behind the Picasso. Out of respect, although he could easily have broken into the safe if he'd wanted to, Will averted his eyes while Fog punched the combination into an electronic keypad.

Will refused to admit confusion about Fog's behavior. He pretended to be absolutely serene, totally nonplussed by this sudden trip to the "heart of darkness," the center of Fog Industries – the place where, Will knew from his reconnaissance of the Manhattan apartment, all of the really big deals were made. The multi-million dollar acquisition Fog had been celebrating that very night had been signed in this room, Will knew, toasted with a bottle of Bordeaux that had cost more than Will Traveler's entire Harvard education.

It was an intimidating room. Carlton Fog was an intimidating man. Clutching his gun, Will felt again as he so often had at the Edon Academy – that no matter what he brought to the table in regards to brains, muscles, firepower or grit, he would never really be as powerful as people like Fog. He would never own his authority, never achieve the casual cruelty that marked the privileged as the privileged. He was in Fog's territory here, quite literally, and Will admitted to himself that he strongly disliked Carlton Fog for reminding him of that fact, of Will's outsider status to the only club that mattered in America.

Having learned a long time ago how to read people's motives, Will was keenly aware that Fog knew exactly how the study made him feel. Tyler's father had weighed and measured Will in a single glance on the terrace; he had taken stock of his opponent and determined precisely how to handle him from moment one.

Well, so be it. Some things couldn't be changed: Will would always feel inferior to the rich and powerful; his humble beginnings would always be a sore spot for him, always be a button that an enemy could push. He shrugged off the feelings of inadequacy and credited his opponent with a win, albeit a small one. He didn't even feel too badly about losing in this small way; after, Fog was older and wiser and richer and more powerful, so Will supposed if he had to lose to someone, if he had to be played the fool by someone, it might as well be to a worthy adversary.

Like him or hate him, Will acknowledged that Carlton Fog was just that – a force to be reckoned with.

Fog didn't speak again until they had walked back down the hallway to the kitchen. Then, as Will, sensing any immediate danger was over, discreetly tucked the gun into his waistband, Fog plopped a stack of hundred-dollar bills onto the countertop.

A very large stack.

A very, very large stack, actually.

A stack that added up, Will mentally calculated, to approximately one million dollars.

_Nice try, old man, but not even close._

"Think of it as a down payment," Fog announced, correctly reading the glint in Will's eyes – the information Will had to offer was worth at least fifty times the amount Fog had just placed in front of him, and they both knew it. "I'm not comfortable taking something for nothing. You give me these videos you say you have, I give you a million dollars, and I consider us to have embarked upon an official business relationship."

Now it was Will's turn to study Fog. He did so unabashedly, not surprised to discover that, as he had, Fog calmly withstood the scrutiny. Maybe Fog had been part of the espionage world, Will reflected, or maybe he was simply accustomed to not being trusted by his business partners. In any event, Carlton Fog did not flinch under Will's penetrating gaze – he did not betray a single hint of deception.

So far as Will could tell, Fog's acceptance of his offer was genuine.

Will also understood that the money represented nothing so innocuous as a good faith gesture. It represented Fog's pride: The older man undoubtedly sensed that, just as Will was for all intents and purposes placing his life in Fog's hands, by agreeing to help him betray the Partners, Fog was also (albeit to a lesser extent, given the money and power Fog had access to, the likes of which Will could only dream of) putting his fate in Will's hands. If the negotiation was indeed a test of Fog's faith, he was certainly a dead man; even if it wasn't, however, Fog's future, and his son's, would depend upon Will's ability to deliver what he had promised, to successfully complete his mission without allowing the Partners to become suspicious about his real motives for doing so, about his plans to walk away. By producing one million dollars out of his private home safe, Fog was effectively reminding Will on which side the balance of power lay in their relationship – with the man who could call that sort of money to his fingertips in the blink of an eye, not with the man who had nothing more than his wits and his weapon to carry him away from danger.

_Point taken, old man. Point taken._

"So I guess this means we're in business," Will declared, covering his relief with a veneer of nonchalance. He produced two disks from his back pocket – the video files he had promised Carlton – and slid them across the table. The money he ignored. He had no way of hauling a million dollars out of Fog's apartment in the middle of the night, and he had no intention of attempting to do so. "Should we talk terms?"

"What if this is my final offer?" Fog swept a hand over the countertop, indicating the stacks of bills. "You've already given me enough to prove my son's innocence. Why should I give you anything more?"

Having anticipated something along these lines during their negotiations, Will shot back a ready answer. "I won't say that I think you should be interested in building as strong of a case in your son's defense as possible, and that I can give you a hell of a lot more to help you do that besides what's on those two disks. I won't say that I think you should remember that if I'm caught, as you said yourself there's a good chance I will be, it wouldn't hurt to have bought a little bit of my loyalty to make sure I keep my mouth shut about your part in all of this when the Partners question me.

"I will say," Will concluded, watching Fog's face carefully to see if his next words would have the desired effect or if he would have to find someway to make his escape happen on a tenth of what such a disappearance would actually cost, "that I didn't come to you because I'm banking on you having some kind of fatherly feelings for your son. As a matter of fact, Mr. Fog, I'm not convinced that you give a damn about Tyler.

"I came to you because I get the impression you're not a man who enjoys taking orders from a lackey like Jack Freed." Will held up a hand to silence Fog's protest. Reluctantly, the older man nodded for him to continue, though his glower told Will that he was on shaky ground. "Some government sod in a bad suit comes in here and tells you to serve up your only son like Abraham offering up Isaac, I've got a feeling that pisses you off pretty good.

"So I'm thinking what you're most interested in about our little deal is that it gives you the opportunity to stick it right back to Freed. You may have to go on pretending you're doing what he says for the time being, but every time I bring you a new piece of evidence – and I promise you, Mr. Fog, there will be a lot more evidence for me to bring before this is all over with – you're going to have the satisfaction of knowing that someday soon, Jack Freed's going to regret the day he ever dreamed he could put Carlton Fog under his thumb."

Ah, there it was, flashing in Fog's eyes: Pride, one of the deadliest of the seven deadly sins.

Will had to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep from laughing triumphantly. He was at a particularly delicate point in the negotiations, a point at which Carlton Fog needed to believe that the young man asking for his help respected him a great deal more than Jack Freed ever had. That was essential, Will knew, because to Carlton Fog, Will Traveler and Jack Freed were of the same ilk: Men from poor backgrounds who had clawed their way up the ranks, necessary evils for sustaining wealth and power but, like all servants, intolerable once they developed ideas above their stations. Freed had forgotten his place on the food chain, had forgotten that regardless of the size of his bank account, he was not an aristocrat, he was not an equal to Carlton Fog. Will could only imagine the blow Fog's ego had taken when he had been commanded to sacrifice his eldest son by a man he certainly viewed as far beneath him in every way that mattered.

Will had been scrupulous in not repeating Freed's mistake. He had held a gun on Fog, yes; he had broken into his home, yes; he had refused to play the role of the obedient surrogate son, yes. He had also, however, addressed Fog consistently as "Mr. Fog"; he had put the gun away as soon as it was established that Fog would not be calling for security; he had asked for help, not demanded it. All of these differences Will could see Fog mentally cataloguing as he stewed over Will's remarks, until finally, he seemed to determine what they meant for Will's future.

"All right, son, you've got my number there." Fog smiled thinly, as if admitting that someone had figured him out pained him even as he allowed himself to be somewhat impressed by the young operative in front of him. Again, Will had to fight being flattered by Fog's paternal attention. "I'm assuming you had a figure in mind."

_Start high. _Those had been Alex's only words of advice for bargaining. In Will's experience, they were sufficient.

"One hundred million dollars."

"Fifty million."

"Ninety."

"Seventy-five. And I'll pick up related expenses along the way," Fog added hastily. "We can think of it as an 'incidentals' account for travel or – "

"Done."

Seventy-five million plus "incidentals" (which, in an escape plan this complex, were sure to arise) more than suited Will's needs. He wasn't greedy; he wanted enough to escape and enough to survive, that was all. With Maya as his life-long love, with Jay and Tyler free and clear to live out their bright futures, Will wouldn't need anything more than the safety net of never popping up on Hometown's radar for the rest of his life – and Maya's. Seventy-five million dollars could make that happen.

Negotiations complete, Will forced himself to extend a hand to Fog, whom he knew would expect to shake on their deal. Clasping hands with the man who had put into motion the assassination attempt that resulted in his father's death required every ounce of self-control Will possessed, which was saying something, but he managed, for Maya's sake and his friends'.

"Nice doing business with you, Mr. Fog." Will twitched his trademark Traveler grin at Tyler's father and was pleased to note that, as always, the smile elicited an automatic grin in response. "Thanks for the food, too."

"Just a second, if you don't mind, Will."

Fog walked around the island to join Will in the kitchen doorway. Will tensed, wondering if the older man planned to attack him after all; his hand instinctively moved toward the gun. Fog either didn't notice or wasn't frightened, because he didn't back up an inch.

Tilting his head to one side in yet another gesture reminiscent of Tyler, Fog said, his tone almost deferential, "There's just one more thing I'd like to know. But if you can't tell me, I'll understand."

Fingers brushing cold metal, Will nodded for him to continue.

"Why is it that you'd like to kill me?"

An explosion of memories went off behind Will's eyes, as if Fog's words had lit the fuse on a string of fireworks. He saw his father sitting by his bed reading from a children's version of the King Arthur tales; saw him standing with his chest puffed out with pride in the auditorium of Edon Academy while his son read the year's winning poem to the entire school his eighth-grade year, oblivious to how his JC Penney suit clashed with the Armani and Versace all around him; saw him pushing his adult sister Alice on the swing in Goldie and Papa's backyard, heedless of the snow and the frigid temperatures, heedless of all but Alice's childlike shrieks of glee; saw him stretched out in military blue inside a white-lined casket, hands that had brushed his son's feverish brow and taught his son to swing a hammer and fired a gun to save another man's life folded across his muscular chest, eyes closed forever inside a handsome face that his son knew would be a mirror of his own when he reached early middle age.

All of this Will saw in the time it took for him to remove his hand from the semi-automatic weapon in his belt. "You took something from me, Mr. Fog," he replied, skirting the truth but wanting, in spite of the risk, to answer Fog's question – because it was a fair question, really, one that deserved a response. "I thought, when I accepted this assignment, that I wanted to take something back from you. I thought I wanted to take your son. Until I met him.

"And you're right," Will confessed, "tonight I did think about taking your life. But I think I'll settle for taking your money instead."

They shared a grin over that. "Speaking of money," Fog jerked his chin toward the pile of cash still on the countertop, "I think you forgot something."

"How about you keep it for me." Will didn't have to work very hard for the smile he mustered; Carlton Fog was not a good man, not by anybody's estimation, but, like his son, he was easy to like. "That way you know I'll be back."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17:**

"**The Truth Shall Set You Free"**

_Deer Harbor_

_Ten months before Drexler bombing_

In the nearly nine months since Will had described to her the plan for their escape, Maya had grown accustomed to the fact that her life was catalogued by strangers.

She was aware that the store was bugged. At first, knowing that had made her dread going into work, until she realized that she never said or did anything in "Have Books, Will Travel" that Will's employers could possibly care about. She actually began to take a perverse pleasure in imagining some poor sod somewhere listening to her incredibly-dull days – helping five-year-olds find the perfect book of bedtime stories, advising moms-to-be on the best pregnancy guides, pointing tourists to volumes of local history and recreation guides, discussing Milton and Faulkner and Wordsworth with the bibliophiles who visited her on a weekly basis. Probably the only exciting thing Will's employers ever heard from her little shop was the goings-on of the Harlequin League, a group of middle-aged housewives and blue-haired old ladies who gathered in the backroom of Maya's store once a month to discuss their favorite racy novels.

As Will had shown her, Maya swept her house for surveillance devices on a regular basis. Three times a week, in fact, instead of just one, as he had instructed. If she were to find said devices, Maya knew she would have to leave them in place, for her safety and Will's; she also knew that, as she had come to accept that privacy did not exist at the store, she would, if needed, learn to accept the same thing in her own home. What she couldn't stand, however, was the _not knowing _– the paranoia that while she had been at work, some nameless, faceless operatives had entered her home and stashed cameras and microphones that were, unbeknownst to her, recording her every movement, her every word.

It was only be sheer force of will that Maya refused to sweep the house every single day. Some self-control was necessary or she would risk becoming dangerously neurotic about the situation.

While it might have been mere paranoia, sometimes Maya suspected that Will's employers literally looked in on her. On occasion, she thought she recognized a certain something, a certain "Will-ness," in faces she passed on the streets of Deer Harbor, or in tourists who ventured into her store. She never gave any outward indication that she suspected these people – mostly men, the majority of them around Will's age – were anyone other than who they were purporting to be, yet inside, she would feel cold and clammy until they passed her by or left the shop.

Will had assured Maya over and over again, without her needing to ask for the comfort, that she had nothing to fear from his employers. Even if he were caught, he had told her a dozen times during the spring and summer months, the people he worked for would have no reason to hurt her. Will believed what he said, Maya knew, but she also knew that he needed to believe it or he wouldn't have been able to go on doing what had to be done to save the both of them and, if Carlton Fog came through as planned, Jay and Tyler.

"You cooperate with them," Will would always conclude these conversations by saying, cupping her chin in his hands and staring hard into her eyes the way he did when he wanted her to see how deadly-serious he was. "If anybody ever comes around looking for me or asking you questions about me or what I do, you tell them whatever they want to know. You tell them the truth, and don't try to hold back. Don't you think about me, don't you worry about that. You just answer their questions, Maya, and they won't hurt you. There's no benefit to them hurting you so long as you cooperate."

Maya would always think, though for Will's peace of mind she never said it, _Right, like I could spill all of your secrets to people who would kill you for even daydreaming about betraying them. _

Thus, each time Maya spotted someone she thought might work for Will's bosses, she experienced a wave of panic that the questioning Will had alluded to was about to begin, that they were there to grab her, haul her off to a dark room somewhere and demand that she tell them what Will was really up to in New Haven.

Maya's stomach clenched at the very idea of being tortured. She had stopped reading spy novels because the graphic images of interrogation gave her nightmares; she was terrified of the pain, obviously, but more than that, she was terrified that, when it came down to it, she would break and betray Will. Although that was what he wanted her to do, what he had instructed her to do, Maya would never forgive herself if she failed him, if she gave away a secret that led to his death.

The only balm in such a scenario would be that her interrogation would probably end in her own death, so she wouldn't have to live with her guilt. But that was certainly cold comfort.

Fortunately, the occasions when Maya encountered someone who didn't seem to be quite what they were pretending to be were rare and did not become any more frequent as the warm summer days faded into crisp autumn evenings. She and Will had spent a magical two weeks together at the end of August; they had hardly left her house, except for Maya to go to work (it would have looked suspicious if she had closed the store for two weeks) or to take a picnic out to Fairyland. In the six-week interval since she had seen him off for New Haven, Maya had been living in a fog of misery brought on by both missing the man she loved – sometimes, she longed for Will's kiss, his touch, so badly she felt like literally climbing the walls – and by wondering whether Carlton Fog had agreed to Will's terms. She knew Will had stopped in Manhattan for the clandestine meeting on his way back to Yale, but he hadn't been able to contact her with the results of the meeting.

The suspense was agony for Maya. She wanted to know that Will was all right, of course, that Fog had not betrayed them, that Will's employers were not planning to kill him. And she also wanted confirmation that Jay and Tyler were going to be all right. She didn't know how she could leave with Will when the time came if they weren't able to arrange for Jay and Tyler's innocence to be proven.

She didn't know how Will would be able to leave in that case, either. He cared too much about his roommates. She saw it more and more each time he returned to Deer Harbor.

On an unseasonably warm mid-September Friday, Maya's questions were finally about to be answered: Will would be arriving by that evening's six o'clock train. She woke up humming to herself in happy anticipation and, as the day progressed, found herself smiling broadly for no reason at all while she mentally ticked off the hours separating her from seeing Will.

Being in love was glorious, it really was, no matter what dangers were involved.

That thought had no more than crossed Maya's mind when her worst fears came true.

The bell above the shop door clinked to life as Maya was turning to step into her office, where the lunch she had packed for herself waited in the mini-fridge by her desk. Swiveling around, Maya automatically offered a warm smile of greeting to her customer, saying, "I was just popping into the back for a moment, but can I help you with something before I do?"

Framed by the midday sunlight, the woman looked exceptionally pretty, almost angelic. She wore her shoulder-length, honey-colored hair in loosely-curled waves that highlighted her elegant, rather aristocratic bone structure – high, pronounced cheekbones; small, sharp nose; delicate, thin-lipped mouth; heart-shaped jaw; slightly pointed chin. Her complexion was the creamy white-peach that bespoke a life lived on the best food and the most expensive wine and the softest sheets. In decided contrast to this obvious affluence, however, the woman wore dusty brown hiking boots, a faded pair of loose-fitting jeans, and a man's red-and-blue-checked flannel shirt over a form-fitting white tank-top.

No one like this lived in Deer Harbor. No one like this _visited _Deer Harbor. Maya had spent her entire life in this community, and she was certain no one like this woman had ever set foot in the town before, at least not during her lifetime, and then probably not on purpose.

This woman was only here now, Maya saw in a split-second, because of Will.

Unlike the other operatives Maya thought she had discerned, this woman offered no pretense of being anyone other than who she was. "Hello, Maya," she began evenly, her sugary-sweet smile not quite reaching her ice-blue eyes. "My name is Kate. I need to talk to you about Will."

A million thoughts raced through Maya's mind. The most important, though, was that this conversation was not private; somewhere, in that dark little room Maya so feared, ears were perking up, analysts were coming to life as "Have Books, Will Travel" finally saw some action.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about." Maya immediately decided that her smartest play (as Will would have put it, since he always talked about his work in terms of a game) was to feign ignorance for the eavesdroppers. She wanted them to know that she wouldn't spill her guts to the first stranger who walked through her door and dropped Will's name. "You must have me confused with – "

"You can call John Ellington at this number and confirm my identity." Kate, if that was really the woman's name, reached into her leather Prada bag and produced a business card. Walking over to Maya, she placed the card on the counter between them. Her smile did not falter as she insisted, "Go on, it's all right. You should be cautious. It's what we want."

Maya turned the card over in her hands. _John Ellington, _it read in bold capitol letters. Beneath that, in cursive script, was the business name "Fallbrook Dunn"followed by a Manhattan address.

Fallbrook Dunn. Handing the card back to Kate after she dialed the number, Maya filed that name away in her memory for later, not knowing when – or if – she or Will might find it useful.

The smooth, refined male voice that answered the phone on its second ring was so familiar to Maya she realized it must have been integrated into her subconscious three (now almost four) years ago when John Ellington recruited her into this nightmare world of his. "Yes, Maya, Kate works with us," he said, when she had hastily stumbled through her reason for calling. "Could I speak to her a moment, please?"

Wordlessly, Maya handed the cordless phone to Kate, who said, "Hello, John," like she was speaking to an old friend. She was quiet for several minutes, listening and nodding, giving Maya a chance to size her up.

_Kate works with us, _Ellington had said. By "us," Maya couldn't help wondering, did he mean Will, too? She remembered how Will, as Daniel Taft, had referred to his "friend" on the first night of their acquaintance. At the time, Maya had been mildly curious about the love-life of an undercover agent; she recalled creating a romantic Parisian encounter between Daniel/Will and his "friend."

In place of curiosity, Maya now experienced a pang of white-hot jealousy as she pictured this gorgeous, sophisticated woman raking her manicured nails down Will's back. The feeling startled Maya. Of course Will would have had lovers before her; he was definitely no stranger to love-making, their own nights together had shown her that much. It would have been ridiculous for her to expect some kind of prescience on Will's part that would have kept him "pure" and untouched for her; she would have been foolish to be jealous of relationships that had come and gone long before Will ever knew a Maya Sanders existed.

Something about this woman, however, got under Maya's skin. Perhaps, Maya reflected as Kate hung up the phone and turned her charming-yet-insincere smile on her once more, it was in the way Kate had said Will's name. Like she owned him.

Or, like she _wanted _to own him.

"I appreciate your consideration for the operation's integrity, Maya." Kate's patronizing tone, like a schoolteacher praising an exceptional student, set Maya's teeth on edge. Knowing it would not help and could possibly hurt Will for her to make an enemy of this woman, however, Maya wisely held her tongue. Kate continued, "But now that we've established I'm on your side, like I said, we need to talk about Will."

Heart-dropping, mind-numbing fear replaced Maya's earlier jealousy. _They know, _she thought desperately, trying to maintain a politely-placid expression while her pulse thundered away and her hands trembled at her sides. _They know what Will's doing, and they're going to force it out of me so they have proof…_

Well, Maya determined, searching for those reserves of inner strength that had seen her through so many ordeals over the past year, she would endure. She would do her utmost not to break, not to talk. She would put her faith in Will. If everything had come undone, he would be on his way to rescue her if at all possible.

One thing Maya knew with bone-deep certainty was that Will would never leave her behind.

In that knowledge, Maya found her strength. The tremor in her hands subsided; her heartbeat slowed to normal. Facing Kate calmly, she inquired, "What about him?"

"You're seeing him tonight, correct?"

"We have a meet scheduled, yes." Maya was careful to phrase her response in professional terms, to indicate both to Kate and to whomever was listening in that little dark room that "seeing" Will meant nothing more to her than a minor alteration to her weekend plans.

Kate's catty grin told Maya she wasn't fooled. Refusing to be riled, Maya waited silently for the other woman to go on. She had learned a thing or two from watching Will the past twelve months; she knew better than to tip her hand to an opponent.

Always let the other guy do the talking, that was Will's philosophy. Shut-up, listen and stay alive, that was Maya's.

"Whatta you say we do this over lunch," Kate suggested, sliding her arm through Maya's and drawing her toward the door. "For what I need to show you, we need to take a bit of a drive anyway. Know of any good places to eat between here and Caseyville?"

Thirty minutes later, Maya and Kate were settled into a booth at the dirtiest greasy spoon Maya could think of along the highway between Deer Harbor and Caseyville. She bit back a triumphant smirk as she watched Kate wipe at a circular coffee-stain with a damp napkin. If Little Miss Thing wanted to dress up like a country girl, she could live – and eat – like one, too, Maya had decided on the drive over. She didn't care that it was petty of her to bring such an obviously cultured woman to such a dive; Maya enjoyed even small victories over these monsters who ruled her life – and Will's – with an iron fist.

Kate at least proved to be a good sport, ordering the same cheeseburger, fries and chocolate milkshake as Maya. While they ate, she also filled Maya in on the purpose of her visit, which, as Maya had begun to suspect, did not (at least explicitly) involve questioning her about Will's activities.

"I'm sure you know how dangerous Will's operation is," Kate started, picking through her fries in a futile attempt to find one that wasn't soggy with grease. "Once he completes his final directive, if anything were to go amiss, he will need a safe place to 'lay low' for a while. As his asset, part of your job is to provide such a place."

Squirting ketchup onto her own soggy fries and digging in, Maya countered, "Will's been using my house as a 'safe place' to work out the details of this operation for a year now. So what's the difference if he needs to come there after the operation is over?"

"Because," Kate explained, "if the operation were not to end exactly as planned, it is possible – unlikely, but possible – that the authorities might discern the connection between Will Traveler and Deer Harbor. That would mean they could come looking for him in your hometown. And we couldn't run the risk of someone, like maybe your friend the sheriff, remembering that the local bookstore owner has been entertaining a strange young man since last July."

Maya understood: Should Will be tracked to Deer Harbor, he would almost certainly be connected to her. Of course, that didn't actually matter since she and Will would be on a boat bound for ports unknown the instant his mission ended. But as Kate was not to know that, Maya nodded solemnly to show that she grasped the severity of the situation.

Pushing her plate away – she had barely touched her food, Maya noted with juvenile pleasure while polishing off her own cheeseburger – Kate swirled her straw in the thick milkshake and studied the semi-truck traffic coming and going in the parking lot. "Will is a very gifted operative," Kate mused, almost to herself, Maya thought. Her eyes took on a far-off look. "I can't imagine him allowing a mission to be compromised. But we can't ignore that this particular operation has a number of…extenuating factors, I guess I should say."

Kate turned back to Maya, all business once more. "I'm sure I don't have to convince you of how talented Will is when it comes to his job. I suppose he's told you all about his work, his previous operations. It's fascinating stuff, isn't it?"

Abruptly, Maya recalled Will's description of the "interrogation" he had been subjected to following the death of his handler's daughter. No little dark rooms there; no little dark rooms here, either. Nonetheless, Maya realized she was, after a fashion, being interrogated: Whether Kate harbored nothing more than her own personal suspicions or whether her (and Will's) employers had instructed her to "feel out" the operative/asset relationship between Will and Maya, Kate was obviously fishing, looking for any indication that all was not as it should be in Deer Harbor.

_Nice try, honey, but you're right – Will is very talented at his job. I've been watching him at it for a year now, and sadly for you, I'm a pretty fast learner…_

Maya suddenly remembered a conversation she'd had with Will while lying beside the lake at Fairyland that summer, when in one of his rare, unguarded moments he had confessed to her that whenever he embarked on a particularly trying aspect of a mission he would repeat a mantra in his head to remind himself that it was only a game. A game, he had said, that the best man – or woman, in this case, would win.

"You just close your eyes for a second," he had told her, his fingers laced behind his head, the sun catching the golden strands in his sandy-brown hair, "and say to yourself…"

_Ready –_

_Set –_

_Go._

A supreme sense of calm descended upon Maya, the way Will had told her it did over him once he wholly and completely committed himself to the game. Regarding Kate coldly, letting the other woman know with a disdainful glare that she was onto her, Maya replied primly, "Will and I haven't discussed anything about what he does other than what I need to know to help him with _this_ operation. If you're so familiar with his work, you should know Will is way more professional than that. He wouldn't involve me in things that didn't concern me."

"Of course, how silly of me. I didn't mean to imply that Will would cross some kind of boundary with you."

Kate's words and smile were both taunting. Maya needed all of her self-control not to reach across the table and slap her beautiful face. Yet even as her anger boiled beneath the surface, Maya's mind was also busy untangling her companion's motives.

If Kate wanted to know what the story was between Will and Maya, she wasn't being especially sneaky in her approach. Either she was a poor interrogator, which Maya found she didn't believe for a second, or her interest had nothing to do with her orders. In fact, Maya, recalling the rather dreamy expression on Kate's face when she had talked about Will's talents, had a growing suspicion that Kate's attempts to goad her into admitting that she and Will were in love had a lot more to do with the other woman's _personal _interest in Will.

_My Will, that is. So she can just back the fuck off._

Spy games Maya was still learning. Feminine games, those she had learned, like most American girls, in junior high, had perfected during high school. Those she could play, even with a highly-trained, deadly undercover operative.

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Maya arranged her features into the picture of innocence as she inquired, "So you know Will pretty well, I take it?"

Kate's cobalt eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly. "I've met him," she replied grudgingly, as if it pained her to admit that she did not, in fact, enjoy the same intimacy with Will that Maya did.

"Oh?" Maya kept her tone light, conversational. Just a little friendly chit-chat between the girls. "But you've worked with him, I'm sure."

"Not exactly."

"I see."

Through a superior smile, Maya conveyed to Kate that she _did _see – she saw that this woman wanted a relationship with Will that she didn't have. Maya was careful not to imply that she enjoyed that kind of relationship with Will herself; she wanted to live more than she wanted to win this little game. Nevertheless, Maya could tell that by turning the tables on her opponent, she had defused Kate's smug conceit that she would be able to intimidate or confuse the small-town country girl into accidentally giving away more than she intended.

_Game, set and match_ – _this one goes to me._

Kate abruptly motioned for their gum-snapping waitress to bring the check. Maya hid yet another smirk by draining the last of her milkshake. Dropping bills onto the table, Kate said stiffly, "If you're ready, we should probably get moving. Don't want you to be late to meet Will's train."

They left the diner and drove on to the far side of Caseyville, letting sappy country love songs from the local radio station fill the silence inside Kate's BMW. At length, Kate turned down the drive of a small, white-frame house surrounded by a perfectly-kept lawn. The house was set far enough back from the main road to offer some privacy, yet it was not secluded enough to be easily approached without alerting the inhabitants.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the term 'safe-house'," Kate said, putting the car in park without killing the engine. "That's basically what this is, a property we – " Maya did not miss how Kate lumped herself in with the higher-ups – "purchased prior to the inception of the New Haven op, to serve just that function for our operative, should it become necessary.

"If anything goes wrong with Will's final directive," Kate continued, shifting slightly in her seat to face Maya, "he will make his way here as swiftly as he can. He will contact you in advance, and you should come directly here and be prepared to do whatever he asks to address the situation."

Maya grasped the concept, though she wondered how in the world these people could believe that a small-town bookstore owner would be of any actual use in an espionage crisis. "I can do that."

"The house is stocked with food and medical supplies, as well as communications equipment. It shouldn't be necessary for you to leave for anything once you're here. You would, of course, remain until Will directed you that it was all right to go."

Listening to Kate, Maya all at once realized how much different her future could have been had she and Will not fallen in love, had she continued on as simply his "asset." How frightening, how frustrating, it would be to sit here then, being informed in clipped, business-like tones by this complete stranger that she would, essentially, be expected to drop everything and run to the aid of her "operative" the moment he called, and then to remain unquestioningly by his side for as long as he deemed necessary. Like the only thing that mattered in the world were these shady people and their shady dealings.

Maya supposed it was unfair to transfer all of the anger such musings created in her onto the woman in the car with her. In all likelihood, Kate was as far removed from the real sources of power as Will was; she might even have a sympathetic backstory like the one Maya knew lay in Will's past. Yet given that she had taken an immediate disliking to Kate, Maya found it fairly easy to blame her for a lot of things that probably weren't within her control, whether doing so was rational or not.

"I can handle all of that," Maya replied firmly. She was ready to be home, ready to be away from this stranger. She was ready to see Will. "Anything else?"

"Just be sure to memorize the route here as we leave. Oh," Kate added, putting the BMW in reverse and backing down the gravel drive, "and you'll need to tell Will the location of the safe-house during your 'meet'."

Maya noted but ignored Kate's sarcastic reference to the weekend Maya and Will would be spending together. She had decided that Will's employers were either not suspicious of or not concerned about her romance; Kate's ire stemmed, Maya was certain of it, from a purely personal source.

Sometime in the next forty-eight hours, Maya intended to find a way of discreetly determining how well Will knew this woman. Maya recognized a competitor when she saw one. While she didn't like Kate, she could still admit that the other woman was definitely beautiful and sexy and sophisticated in a way any man, even one who was madly in love with someone else, would probably find attractive. So if it turned out that Kate was a regular fixture in Will's life, Maya meant to employ whatever feminine wiles were needed to keep her man's attention focused entirely on her, not on some gorgeous blonde ice-queen super-spy.

_Ready, set, go, indeed_, Maya thought dryly.

But the game, it seemed, was not quite finished for the day, for Kate had one last ace up her sleeve. When the BMW rolled to a stop in front of Maya's store, nearly three hours after they had left, Kate placed a restraining hand on Maya's arm before she could open the door.

"Just one more thing, Maya." Kate's expression was suddenly unreadable. Her coldness, her emotional remove, set Maya's heart to pounding with fear once more.

_What now? _Maya wanted to scream. _What else do you people want from me? From Will?_

"I have this for you. A colleague sent it along."

Kate reached underneath her seat and produced a large manila envelope. On the front, in tidy male penmanship, was written Maya's name; in the left-hand corner where the return address would normally have gone was written the name "Harland McCormick."

Maya remembered him at once – Special Agent Harland McCormick, of the Augusta FBI field office. He had been the agent Will's employers had sent to investigate Jericho's murder, the kindly, dapper, silver-haired man who had treated her so gently during her bereavement.

The agent, Maya recalled with a shudder of dread, in front of whom she had behaved so bizarrely – so guiltily, really – when Sheriff Barker referred to Will as her boyfriend.

Accepting the envelope with trembling fingers, Maya waited in a cold, nervous sweat for the other shoe to drop, for Kate to say silkily, _Well, open it, _and the jig to be up, the interrogation to begin for real. She let the package fall to her lap, finding that she couldn't bring herself to look inside without specific orders to do so.

"Harland said he'd been wanting to get that to you for a while, and since he knew I'd be seeing you today, he asked me to bring it with me," Kate explained. Her voice had taken on an indiscernible edge now, something Maya might almost have classified as sympathy.

Maya didn't know if Kate's change in demeanor was a good sign or a bad one, so she continued to sit perfectly still while Kate went on, "I don't know what's inside. You probably don't believe that, but it's the truth. I've known Harland for a long while, and if he says that's for your eyes only, then as far as I'm concerned, it is."

"Did he…" Maya swallowed hard, trying to form words in her cotton-dry mouth. "Did he say what it's about?"

Kate shook her head. "No, he just said he thought it was important for you to see. And, well, he thought it should be just between you and God, if you will."

Surprised, Maya lifted her gaze to Kate's. Was she understanding the other woman correctly? Was she implying that Will's employers did not know about McCormick sending this, whatever it was, to her?

And if she was saying that, could Kate be trusted?

Maya realized those questions could be answered later. For now, she was eager to be alone with her thoughts, anxious to prepare for Will's arrival, which was rapidly approaching. "Thank him for me," was all she said, since Kate apparently did not mean for her to open the envelope while in the car.

"Sure." Kate shrugged, as if to say, _It's no matter to me. _Her catty smile abruptly returned. "Have a nice weekend, Maya."

Inside her store, Maya watched the BMW drive away down Main Street. She carefully tucked the envelope into her messenger bag and left at once; the store had been closed all afternoon, and she saw no reason to re-open it for a mere two hours. She didn't feel like dealing with customers at the moment, anyway – she felt like a long, hot shower and some time alone to think before Will's train pulled into town.

Harland McCormick, the agent who had investigated Jericho's death, had information for her, something he thought it was "important for her to see," Kate had said. Something he seemingly did not want Will to know about, or surely he could have sent it to her via Will, through the handler Will had told her about, if nothing else.

Once she reached her house, Maya did not take McCormick's letter out of her bag. Instead, she carefully combed the house for surveillance equipment – only prudent, she thought, given her afternoon's unexpected visitor. But even then she did not open the envelope; she left it buried at the bottom of her bag while she climbed into the shower.

The night of Jericho's death had been replaying over and over in Maya's mind ever since she had seen McCormick's name on that envelope. She kept recalling, though she didn't actually want to, how Will had beaten such a hasty exit from the house, how he had claimed to be meeting his handler to discuss what Maya should say to the police about Jericho if they showed up with questions. At the time, none of that had seemed unusual to Maya. Everything had been so chaotic, so confused, that simply knowing Will was taking care of things, however he needed to do so, had been enough for her.

Afterwards, in all the months since, Maya had never really allowed herself to return to that night, because she still harbored such incredible guilt over not knowing that her brother was literally feet from their backdoor when his murderer pounced.

Standing under the steaming spray of her shower, Maya felt chilled to the bone. She had always envisioned Andy Pruitt stepping out of the shadows beside her father's shed, gun leveled cruelly at Jericho's head, his meaty fist raised to knock her brother out before he had a chance to fight back. Now, no matter how diligently she tried not to let her mind travel in that direction, Maya kept seeing another figure – a smaller, yet no less powerful figure – lurking in the shadows, a wicked-looking combat knife clutched in his hand, a fearsome chill stealing into his blue-green eyes as he waited for Jericho to drop his guard.

Will was deadly in a fight. Maya had seen it with her own two eyes. How hard would it have been for him to take out both Pruitt and her brother at once?

_Not hard at all, not for a soldier like Will…_

That had been the first night she and Will had ever shared a bed – the first of many. He had claimed a bad dream had sent him there; Maya, thrilled by his nearness, consumed by her love and desire for him, had not questioned that story, either. Nor had it occurred to her to question it in the days that followed, as she had depended so heavily on Will's comfort and closeness that she had quite forgotten a time had existed when he hadn't held her in his arms while she fell asleep.

Had Will given himself an alibi for murdering her brother by coming to her bed?

_So open the damn envelope and find out. Stop torturing yourself – the answers are just downstairs, in your bag._

Maya knew that was the only logical step to take. Yet somehow, she couldn't bring herself to take it. Because if her fears were confirmed, if Harland McCormick had sent her proof that Will, not Andy Pruitt was her brother's murderer, Maya had no idea how to react to such information: Did she throw it in Will's face and order him out of her house, regardless of the consequences for her from his employers? Did she pretend not to know and try to go on loving him like before, because even if it was wrong, against all familial bonds, she knew it wouldn't change how she felt about Will to learn that her suspicions were right on-target? Did she tell Will that she knew but that she forgave him?

_And the truth shall set you free_, Reverend Goss had once said when Maya was a little girl, in some sermon whose larger message she could no longer recall. Those words had always stuck with Maya; she had believed them with all of her soul, with all of the certainty of someone who had nothing to fear from the truth.

Now, Maya wasn't so sure the truth was all it was cracked up to be.

By the time she was dressed and had blow-dried her hair, it was nearly time for Will's train to arrive. She had left herself no choice (accidentally-on-purpose, almost) but to decide what to do about McCormick's package later, either after Will returned to New Haven or at least until after he fell asleep that night.

Having become as adept as her beloved at compartmentalizing unpleasant events and emotions in the course of the last year, Maya pushed Kate's visit and McCormick's message out of her mind. She wanted to see Will, more now than ever before. She wanted him to hold her, to kiss her, to run his fingers through her hair and, like he did each time he returned from New Haven, ask her how she could get so much more beautiful every six weeks. She wanted to hear about his meeting with Carlton, about his new classes this term, about his anger over the Cubs' latest losing streak, about Jay and Tyler and Kim and Nell.

She wanted them to just be Will and Maya for a little while longer, before harsh reality intruded upon them.

Will's train must have arrived early, for he was waiting on the platform amongst a rapidly-thinning crowd when Maya's Jeep rolled up. In true Will fashion, he managed to look sexy and adorable at the same time in tattered jeans, a Cubs tee-shirt, and a ribbed brown cardigan worn against the early-evening autumn wind, his black backpack (formerly Jericho's, Maya recalled with a pang) slung over his shoulder, hair perpetually mussed.

He grinned from ear to ear when he saw her in a way that made Maya's heart flip over No one in the world was ever as glad to see her as Will always was; he could make her feel like the most special person alive with a single glance.

"Hey beautiful," he greeted her, hopping into the front seat and seizing her hand where it lay between them. She could see he wanted to kiss her; his eyes went directly to her mouth.

Maya's heart flipped over again, this time from the promise of pleasures to come once they were alone.

Since they didn't dare risk a public display of affection his employers might witness, though, Will settled for squeezing her fingers. Without preamble, he blurted out the news she could see at once he had been dying to give: "Carlton's on-board."

A breath she didn't realize she'd been holding rushed out of Maya, leaving her weak with relief. Tears actually flooded her eyes, though she blinked them furiously away. Fearful that Kate or one of her minions might be snapping pictures of them through a telephoto lens (Maya was a bookworm, after all – she had read a lot of spy novels and her imagination ran wild about the capabilities of Will's employers), she was determined to act supremely normal until she and Will were safely ensconced at the surveillance-free house.

Fortunately, she didn't need to say or do anything for Will to read her relief. "I know," he agreed with her silent exclamation, smiling into her eyes. "It's been like the weight of the world lifting off me these last six weeks. I can actually _look _at Jay and Tyler again."

"That's so great, Will. It really is."

In spite of her true happiness over Will's news and over being with him, Maya found she couldn't quite achieve her normal, easy tone. Instead, she sounded strained, anxious.

And, of course, Will picked up on the difference right away.

"What is it?" His elated smile instantly morphed into a worried frown. Just like on the night when she had retrieved him from the train station after sending Jericho off to his doom, Maya saw the wall descend behind Will's eyes, the wall that separated the most essential parts of "Will" from the soldier he needed to be in a crisis.

The reminder of how cold he could be, how calculating and methodical, made Maya shiver.

Holding her hand tightly, Will pressed, "Maya, talk to me. Did something happen?"

Maya knew she couldn't fool Will – he was too well-trained at reading people, for one thing, and for another, she wasn't a good liar. She opened her mouth to spill the story, to tell him all about Kate's visit – and then stopped, realizing that if she started talking about Kate, she was going to eventually come around to the envelope McCormick had sent for her, because Will was sure to ask dozens of questions (he would be worried by the impromptu visit, Maya knew). He wouldn't back off until he had rung every last detail from her.

Start the story and she would have to finish it. Thus, said a small voice inside her head that Maya associated more with Will than herself, she needed to think carefully about _what _story she started.

Kate had said to tell Will about the safe-house. Maya would follow those instructions, of course; she didn't know when Will's "final directive," as Kate had called it, would be issued, or what in the world it might be, and she didn't want him to be in the dark about something as important as a safe-house just in case things didn't go as they (or his employers) had planned and he ended up needing the refuge. But could she tell him about the safe-house without mentioning Kate, and thereby without opening the door for telling him about McCormick's communiqué?

_Ready, set – here we go again…_

"I talked to John Ellington today."

The half-truth came so easily to Maya she had to duck her head to hide a blush of shame. Lying, Thomas Sanders had taught his children, should never be done lightly. She hoped Will would interpret her inability to look him in the eye as a result of her tumultuous emotions about dealing with his employers, not as evidence of her deception.

"There's a safe-house between here and Caseyville that they wanted me to know about, in case something went wrong with your mission and you needed to hide out there."

Will's jaw was clenched. Maya could tell that he strongly disliked his employers contacting his asset – not to mention his girlfriend, though they didn't know that – behind his back. "I'm sorry he bothered you," Will bit out. His grip on her fingers was so tight it was almost painful. "I'm sorry he upset you. I didn't know they were going to do that, or I would've warned you, I promise."

Thankful that his irritation was distracting him from her discomfiture over lying, Maya quickly moved to reassure Will that she was fine. "It wasn't a big deal. I guess I just…"

_Just want to know if you killed my brother and framed Andy Pruitt for it, I guess._

Recovering her composure and ordering her mutinous conscience to shut the hell up, Maya finished hastily, "I guess I just got scared, thinking they were going to ask me questions about you and me, or about you and your mission."

Ever so softly brushing his lips across her knuckles before dropping her hand back in her lap (they were still in public, after all), Will reminded her, "You don't have to be scared, Maya. If that ever happens, just tell them what they want to know, and you'll be fine."

"And you? What would happen to you if I told them what you're really doing in New Haven?"

It was the first time Maya had ever challenged Will so openly on his insistence that she be absolutely honest with his employers should they ever see fit to question her. She saw a hint of fear in his eyes; she hated adding even more worries to his already-burdened mind, yet with the question of what McCormick's message might reveal burning in her, Maya wasn't prepared to simply do as she was told at the moment. Not even by Will.

Perhaps especially not by Will.

"Let's talk about this on the way," Will suggested. He looked tired, Maya noted, suddenly loathing herself for so thoroughly deflating the elation that had seemed to buoy him when he first climbed into the Jeep. "Don't want anybody to wonder why we're just sitting here."

Maya swallowed hard around a lump in her throat. She didn't want to fight with Will. She didn't want to endure the tense silence that stretched between them as she pointed the Jeep toward home. She didn't want to be angry with him, to suspect him of awful things. She wished she could take her words back, but she knew Will well enough to know that even if she tried, he wouldn't let her.

"You have to remember that you're still in a precarious position, Maya," Will began, after a long silence in which Maya understood that he was settling on the most expedient way to convince her to do as he'd advised.

She wanted to be angry with him for "handling" her, but she couldn't be when she knew he was only doing so because he wanted to protect her.

"I've put you in a whole lot of danger here, and I couldn't live with the guilt if you ever got hurt because of me. I know you feel the same way," Will rushed on, speaking over the top of Maya's automatic protest. "So I know it's unfair of me to ask you to tell the truth, no matter how bad of a situation that truth might put me in.

"But you're not trained to withstand interrogation," Will concluded simply. Something in his eyes, something deadened and hollow, made Maya shiver again, made her wonder what tortures he had endured, or witnessed, or, horror of horrors, conducted. "In the end, you'll tell them what they want to know anyway. There's no shame in it – nobody should have to know how to keep their mouth shut while being tortured. It's sick, it's totally and completely sick. The point is, there's no reason for you to ever go through that, to feel that kind of pain, not even to protect me. Because in the end, Maya, and I don't say this to hurt you, but in the end, you wouldn't be able to protect me, anyway."

Maya's egotism did not extend far enough for her pride to be wounded by having the very obvious fact that she would break under torture spelled out for her. That much she already knew; she didn't fancy herself a heroine. Her love for Will, however, did extend far enough for Maya to be chilled right down to her bones by having the simple, unvarnished truth that she would never be able to protect Will as he was able to protect her laid bare before her.

Turning into her driveway, Maya killed the engine, swiveled in her seat and flung her arms around Will's neck. "I don't want to fight," she said against his cheek, hot tears sliding from beneath her eyelids despite her most determined efforts not to cry. "I'm sorry. I was just upset. I know what you're saying, I-I know I would have to-to…I couldn't…"

"Shh, baby, shh." Will was rubbing her back, smoothing her hair, dropping tender kisses along her forehead. "It's okay, Maya, it's okay. You're in the middle of a nightmare right now, it's okay to be scared and upset. But I'm here now. I'm here. Nothing can hurt you while I'm here."

As her tears dried up and her momentary hysteria waned, Maya turned Will's words over in her mind. _Nothing can hurt you while I'm here. _

_Nothing? Not even a jail-breaking, drug-addict brother who would never have left me alone? Who was bringing all kinds of unwanted attention onto me at a time when I needed to be invisible?_

"You know," Will unexpectedly chuckled, shifting so that Maya was half on his lap in the cramped front seat, "this feels kind of familiar."

Maya cuffed tears off her cheeks and rested her head against Will's shoulder. His warmth, his musky scent, reminded her sharply of how attracted she had been to him from the first moment she had seen him, when he had still been Daniel Taft to her. Who could have predicted then, on the night Will was referring to, that a year later she would know every inch of his body, that she would have spent dozens of glorious nights in his arms?

"I remember." Maya allowed herself to smile, allowed the glow of happiness being near Will always invoked in her to flare to life, expanding until it flooded her soul with light. "You weren't so understanding then, either, as I recall."

"I was an asshole, wasn't I?"

"That was my general impression, yes."

Will tilted Maya's chin up and brought his mouth softly to hers. "It's just because I'd never met any girl like you before," he murmured, his eyes going hazy with desire in the way that always made Maya feel like the sexiest woman alive. "I didn't know what to do with you, Miss Maya Rose. You had me spinning."

"Well," Maya gave in to the moment, to six weeks' of aching for Will, "you recovered nicely, Mr. Traveler. I don't think you're an asshole anymore."

A trail of discarded coats, shoes, jeans and shirts charted their slow path through the kitchen, onto the couch, up the stairs, and into Maya's bed, where they made love tenderly. Concentrating on anything other than Will, on his lean body and his skillful hands, was nearly impossible for Maya; she welcomed the oblivion, the excuse not to think about their troubles, or the lies she had told Will that evening, or the proof of the lies he might have told her that could await her downstairs.

She didn't care if she was in denial. She would gladly take a state of denial over the state of loneliness she had lived in before Will came into her life and stole her heart.

Even as those thoughts crept back in after they at last lay down, spent, beside one another, however, Maya admitted to herself that some questions could not go unasked – or unanswered – forever.

One that she wanted answered for her own peace of mind had to do with her afternoon visitor, Kate.

Rolling onto her side to face Will, Maya considered the best way to broach the subject of former lovers without tipping Will off that she had spoken to anyone other than John Ellington that day. The answer came to her with surprising ease.

Maya wondered once more, with a tingle of discomfort, just how much spy behavior it was wise for her to internalize if she wanted to maintain the personal, moral integrity she had always prized in herself.

Well, one had to play the game or step off the court, right? And since Maya was pretty well barred from doing the latter, she decided to play to win.

"Will," she began hesitantly, tracing his jaw with her finger, "are you going to miss your work when we leave?"

"Hmm." Will turned the question over in his mind, apparently finding it merited honest consideration rather than a flip answer. "I guess," he said thoughtfully, after what seemed like to Maya a long time but probably was only a few minutes, "I'll miss some things about it, but I can't say I'll really miss this life, no."

Things. What things, Maya found she needed to know, because "things" might be a euphemism for "people."

"Anything in particular?" she asked, aiming for a casual tone and falling miserably short.

Will turned to face her and scooted down on the bed so they were nose-to-nose. His blue-green eyes sparkled playfully. "Maya Rose tries her hand at interrogation," he teased. Maya swatted at him in mock-irritation. "What're you after here, exactly? Not worried that I'm having second thoughts, are you?"

"No. I just…" Maya sighed, now wishing she had left well enough alone. Having sparked Will's curiosity, though, she resigned herself to putting her question to him, if not bluntly, at least more clearly. "I was just wondering, isn't there _anyone _you'll miss?"

"Anyone?" Will looked perplexed, as if bewildered by the suggestion that people existed in his life whom Maya didn't know about. "You mean, like Jay and Tyler? Of course I'll miss them, but I can't exactly have them pack their bags and tag along with us."

"Not Jay and Tyler." Maya didn't know who she was more infuriated with – Will, for being so obtuse, or herself, for bringing up the subject in the first place. "I mean like people you work with. Like that friend you mentioned, when you first came here last year. The one who had to abort her mission because she didn't answer to her alias."

"You mean Alex."

Will said the name easily, like it was no secret at all: Alex, not Kate.

Maya hadn't realized just how jealous she was until that moment, when a wave of relief washed over her. She supposed Will's response wasn't definitive proof that he didn't know Kate, but the fact that he had never alluded to her, and that Kate had been so evasive about how well she knew Will, told Maya what she really needed to know – Kate was not part of Will's life. Not in his opinion, anyway, and that was the only one Maya cared about.

"I haven't seen Alex in a long, long time, Maya."

"You can miss someone no matter how long ago you saw them," Maya pointed out. She wasn't jealous of this Alex; she was glad to discover that her envy extended only to potential current rivals, not to former lovers, or Maya would have been disgusted by herself. "It sounds like she was important to you."

"Maybe she was, once. But that – wait a sec." A knowing grin spread across Will's face. Maya felt a blush steal across her cheeks, suspecting her motive for this line of questioning had been found out. "Maya, please tell me you're not seriously worried that I'm going to be leaving behind some 'other woman' when we go."

Shrugging, feeling silly and juvenile, Maya nevertheless retorted, "Is that so ridiculous? There's so much I don't know about your life, past or present."

"Hey." Will looked wounded. For the second time that night, Maya longed to take back her unnecessarily-sharp words. "Listen to me, okay? I may have to keep some secrets from you, but I wouldn't cheat on you, Maya."

"I know that," she started.

"Well, it doesn't seem like you do."

Will didn't sound angry. Rather, he appeared determined to persuade her of his faithfulness. Taking her hands, he tugged her into his embrace, wrapping his strong arms around her waist and kissing the top of her head affectionately.

"There's never been anybody but you for me, Maya. And there never will be."

Will's words echoed in Maya's soul. How many times had she thought exactly that while lying next to Will, while gazing into his pretty eyes, while lifting her mouth to meet his in a blazing kiss? How many times had she cast back over her life and noted its emptiness, its barrenness, before Will Traveler walked into her world? How many times had she pondered the future and realized that without Will, life would only ever be half-lived?

She kissed him then, kissed him with all of the passion inside of her, kissed him until she felt she had made up for the hurt she had caused him. "I love you, Will," she informed him, rather fiercely, her eyes locked onto his.

"I love you, too." Will smiled sleepily, his contentment restored. "I've got a lot of stuff to tell you, about Carlton and all that, but I'm so tired…"

"Get some sleep, sweetie." Maya brushed her lips across Will's temple and settled in beside him. "We'll talk in the morning."

An hour later, when Will's even breathing had convinced her that he was deeply enough asleep for her to move without disturbing him, Maya eased off the bed and slipped downstairs to the kitchen, where her bag hung on a peg by the backdoor. Soundlessly, she pulled McCormick's envelope out and stood staring down at it for several heartbeats. She was torn, torn between the desire to know, once and for all, if Will was responsible for her brother's death and the desire to remain ignorant, to allow herself to forego the burden of knowledge.

Knowledge – specifically, Maya's knowledge of Will, of what he did and who he was – had always been the ultimate barrier between them, Maya saw that now with surprisingly clarity. Standing in her dark kitchen, wearing nothing except Will's Yale tee-shirt over her underwear, the smell and taste and feel of him still thick on her skin, Maya let her mind play back through the moments when what she didn't know, what she couldn't know, or what she wanted to know had risen up, specter-like, to haunt their relationship.

"_What you have to understand," _she heard Will-as-Daniel say, on the first day of their acquaintance, _"is that you don't want to be asking a lot of questions here. The less you know about who I am and what I do, or who I work for and what their goals are, the better it is for you."_

And after their almost-kiss at Fairyland, when he had told her how she would be helping him frame Jay and Tyler, she heard Will insist, _"I told you a few weeks ago that once you got to know me, you might realize that I have my reasons for doing what I do. Do you know me that well by now, Maya? Do you know me well enough to trust that I wouldn't ask you to do this if it wasn't important, if it didn't serve a larger purpose?"_

"_I wish I could give you everything you ever wanted, Maya," _she heard Will confess, the night of Jericho's funeral. _"I wish I could tell you to just pick the life you'd like to lead and I could make that happen, wherever you wanted to live, whatever you wanted to do. But this is all I've got to give – a lot of secrets, a lot of questions that can't be asked, a lot of things I can never, ever tell you. That's not gonna be easy, not for either one of us."_

That was the same night, Maya suddenly remembered, that Will had told her once she was in, she was in – once she agreed to leave with him, to run out on his employers, she could never walk away. She would be with him, forever, no matter how much she might come to regret that decision.

No matter what secrets she might learn about him.

"You could, Maya," he had declared that night, when Maya had protested that she could never want to leave him, that she could never hate him. "Trust me, if you knew what all I've done, you could hate me."

_He warned me. He gave me an out, and I didn't take it._

From a purely practical perspective, Maya understood that walking away from Will at this point was impossible. Should she find something inside McCormick's package that persuaded her to do the unthinkable – to betray Will to his employers – she would be signing her own death warrant as well; without Will, she was of no use to them, since it wasn't likely that they would reassign her as some other operative's asset once she admitted to what would, Maya was certain, amount to high treason in their estimation. Thus whatever was contained inside that envelope, whether it damned Will or redeemed him, Maya's circumstances would not change: She was as trapped in that regard as she ever had been.

Except, Maya didn't feel trapped anymore.

Even knowing that what she held in her hands in all likelihood revealed Will as her brother's murderer was not enough to make Maya recant her decision to join her future to Will's. Even knowing that he had most likely lied to her, that he had comforted her and cared for her while all the time being the reason for her grief, although it made her furious with him, was not enough to make Maya stop loving Will. It wasn't enough to make even so much as a dent in her love for him, in fact.

Will, who so rarely got anything wrong, had completely missed his target on this one: Maya could never hate him, because she loved _him, _she loved _Will, _unconditionally, not in spite of the things he had or had not done.

She knew Will. She knew he was a good man who, sometimes by necessity and sometimes by choice, occasionally did terrible things. She had accepted a year ago that she was not falling in love with a perfect man; once she had chosen to make her life with him, to be by his side forever regardless of the danger, she had known she would have to take the bad with the good, the same way her father had accepted her mother's failings before committing himself to a life with her. Like Thomas, Maya would stand by the one she loved until the bitter end. She would hold fast to her love. She would hold to Will, and to the promise that she saw fulfilled in him everyday – that through loving and being loved by her, he would find his way out of the shadows and into the sun.

When that day came, Maya intended to be by his side.

Her mind made up, Maya crossed into the living room, knelt in front of the cold hearth, struck a match from the box on the mantle and held the flame to the corner of McCormick's still-sealed envelope. As the paper caught fire, she placed it carefully amidst the ashes, watching Will's secrets burn to smoldering embers.

Maya experienced only one wave of panic that she might be destroying some piece of information essential to their escape and survival before casting such fear aside. The truth was, Maya knew what was inside that envelope. Perhaps not specifically – it could have been photos, DNA evidence, some other forensic data that would have proven Will was her brother's killer, not Andy Pruitt. Whether or not that evidence would have been real or doctored, another elaborate ploy by Will's employers put into action for reasons unknown, would have been the next "truth" for Maya to question. Only Will could tell her what, if anything, had really happened the night that Jericho died, and Maya realized as she watched the unseen contents of the envelope blacken and curl that she was willing to risk never knowing the truth in order to be with him.

Then and there Maya made a choice not to ever tell Will about Kate's visit or about the message she had tried to deliver. He would never need to know how close his secrets had come to being revealed; he had enough to concern him without worrying that strangers in his own organization were trying to come between him and Maya. Someday, Maya felt certain of it, Will would confess his sins to her, if he had anything to confess. But he would do that in his own way, in his own time, and for her part, Maya would respect his right to determine how and when that should be.

Reverend Goss had gotten it wrong, too, at least in this instance, Maya thought. It would not be the truth that set her and Will free.

It would be love.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18:**

"**Escape"**

_Manhattan_

_Nine months before Drexler bombing_

Having grown up working-class, Will had always enjoyed payday. He would never forget seeing the long line of zeroes appear behind the number "five" – as in, five hundred thousand dollars – after completing his first solo assassination for Hometown. Joseph had stood behind him that day, hands on the younger man's shoulders, while together they had stared at the screen of the computer on Joseph's desk as the money had rolled in. Then Joseph had handed his operative a Cuban cigar and a glass of Petrus, to celebrate, Joseph had declared, the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership.

That payday had been Daniel Taft's first taste of independent wealth, though the money had been somewhat superfluous since Hometown looked after all of its agents' needs (thereby allowing them to control the agents' finances, which Will would later come to see as sinister, not practical). In all the years since then, Will had never tired of switching on his computer following an op, typing in the password for his various numbered accounts, and watching the balances shoot up outrageously. Wealth had given Daniel Taft a sense of importance, had given meaning and substance to his life and his work.

Wealth for Will Traveler meant something else entirely, however: Namely, survival.

The payday Will had already collected from Carlton Fog carried with it the promise not only of a new life but of life itself. To keep the Partners (and any other government watchdogs) from becoming suspicious, Will was receiving his seventy-five million in regular increments, each deposit made into a different account; Will wisely emptied the accounts Fog was aware of the moment a transaction was made, and then transferred the money between a few more accounts to make sure it couldn't be traced before letting it finally settle into a secure Cayman Islands bank.

With each deposit Fog made, Will could rest a little easier that Jay and Tyler were going to make it through their upcoming ordeal and that he and Maya were going to manage their escape. His main concern became keeping Hometown off his scent as the enormity of his betrayal grew; each time Will accepted a payment from Fog in exchange for more proof of Jay and Tyler's innocence, each time he added another piece of information to the growing store of evidence (safely locked away in Boston Hall) establishing Hometown's existence, Will knew he was effectively toying with death. All it would take would be one misstep and the Partners would see through his charade of loyalty.

Then it would be a little dark room with a concrete floor and a drain in the center, hours of unimaginable agony, and finally, welcome death. Not exactly the out Will had in mind.

Thus, Will was more than "careful." Since Darian's death, he had taken special note of the surveillance Hometown maintained in New Haven. He had determined that the other operatives – who seemed to come and go on a rotating basis, rather than being permanently assigned to watching the Castle and its inhabitants, which Will assumed was done to keep them from figuring out what Will Traveler's purpose was in New Haven since the Partners didn't trust even their own agents very far – were there to keep tabs on Jay and Tyler, not on him. Will wondered if most of them were even aware that the diminutive-statured, science-nerd roommate was actually one of their own ranks.

Will was constantly on the lookout for the slightest indication that the Partners were onto him. With money in the bank, he now had the means to spirit Maya away at a moment's notice if necessary. He hoped it wouldn't come down to that – it would be much safer for Maya if they could leave as he had planned, once the mission was completed – but if it did, Will would walk away.

In fact, Will's detour to Manhattan on his way to Deer Harbor for the fall semester's second "meet" with Maya was directly linked to his ability to abort the operation immediately in case his betrayal was detected. Will had long since decided that he and Maya would make their escape via boat. Now, that out had been secured. And Will was about to invoke the "incidental expenditure" clause of his agreement with Fog: Buying and stocking the boat had cost a pretty penny, storing it at a marina would cost even more, and Will had no intention of dipping too deeply into his seventy-five million dollar nest-egg when Fog could be leaned on to fork over the cash. That seventy-five million would have to last Will and Maya the rest of their lives; Will was determined to spend it wisely.

Sneaking out of New Haven underneath Hometown's nose a day early to drop in on Fog (with excuses to Jay and Tyler that he was going to a job interview with a large water-protection lobbyist group based out of New York before making his usual field excursion to Maine) represented enormous risk. Will knew only too well that the ice he was skating on was terribly, dangerously thin. Ironically, the reason he felt confident enough to take such risk was because he was doing such a phenomenal job framing Jay and Tyler that the Partners appeared to have completely forgotten that they had ever doubted his abilities or his loyalty.

Once Fog was on-board, once he was certain that Jay and Tyler would be cleared in the end, Will had purposefully thrown himself into his mission for Hometown with more ingenuity and resolve than on any previous operation, which was saying something. He had satisfied the Partners with his work up to that point; since August, however, he had astonished them. His reports to Joseph had consistently earned him lavish praise, as Will had edited together horribly damning video clips of Tyler railing against President Spears, had swiped Jay's rough drafts of law review articles about the legal issues surrounding Guantanamo Bay to fabricate a manifesto against the War on Terrorism, and had embraced his new directive – to make it appear that Jay and Tyler had the tactical training necessary to pull off a terrorist attack – with gusto.

Jay, who had been in the ROTC as an undergraduate and still enjoyed working out, was easy enough to manipulate into "training." All it had taken was for Will to suggest that they begin running together every morning (which Will did anyway) and that they join a karate class offered free to Yale students at a local gym, and Jay was in. Although Will naturally down-played his fighting abilities – as Jon-Michael Davis, he had started martial arts training early in his Edon Academy career, so he was already a more-than-capable fighter by the time he joined Hometown and learned a vast array of new tricks for taking down an opponent in hand-to-hand combat – Will had to admit, it was a lot of fun testing his strength against Jay's. They were surprisingly well-matched; Will took a brotherly pride in watching Jay's skills develop every week, in recognizing that even if he were to stop holding back, Jay would still give him a run for his money.

When the final directive came down, Will knew his friends might be in some amount of physical danger until Fog could get them out, clear their names and set the Partners' elaborate scheme spinning on its top. He slept better at night knowing that Jay could hold his own in a fight if he had to. That Hometown's orders were the reason Jay was learning to be such an effective soldier, not just some helpless civilian who would be easy prey, was poetic justice in Will's book.

Tyler, on the other hand, presented more of a challenge for any type of physical training. Gifted with enviable genes that made him naturally thin and strong, Tyler abhorred work-outs; he never went to the gym, never went running, never went to any lengths at all to maintain his lean, muscular physique. He had turned his nose up at the idea of waking up early to run – "I believe in living hard and dying young, man," he had retorted when Will had suggested that the workout could be a trio activity, "so stop trying to make me healthy enough to suffer the horrors of old age" – and had scoffed at the invitation to take karate – "We're not all gonna be tromping through the wilderness in search of evil corporate pollution conspiracies, you know, Will," he had declined, popping the top on a beer and kicking back to watch the Cubs lose another game. "Wax on, wax off, that's all the karate I need to know for the boardroom."

Defeated at every turn, Will had nearly given up on finding a way to paint Tyler as a well-trained soldier when Kim Doherty, of all people, had delivered the solution right into his lap. In early September, she had declared that if Jay didn't take her out for an evening, she was leaving him for Jones, her lesbian roommate; left to their own devices on a Saturday night, Tyler and Will had organized a group of friends to go to the movies – something they rarely did, actually, given how poor everyone was and how ridiculously over-priced the cinema was. At Kim's suggestion (she had been eager to see Tyler and Will off doing their own thing, giving her more time with Jay), they had settled on a mindlessly-entertaining action film for the evening's entertainment. While everyone had an insanely good time laughing at the stylized fight sequences and the spectacular explosions, no one had enjoyed the movie more than Tyler, and it was then, inside the darkened theater, sandwiched between Tyler and Rabbit, that Will had an epiphany.

What interested Tyler was not strength – he had never needed to rely on his physical prowess, the way Will and Jay, with their hard-knocks childhoods, had – but _power._

The kind of power represented by, say, a gun.

Nominally, Tyler was a pacifist. Will had literally hours of footage for his "video blog" to prove that Tyler Fog was most definitely not a card-carrying member of the NRA. Still, when Will casually mentioned going to the shooting range, Tyler had leapt at the opportunity to come along.

The story Will invented was plausible enough: Raised in rural Maine, Will Traveler would have learned how to handle guns while hunting with his father and his friends; upon arriving in the big city, the backwoods country boy would understandably have felt more secure bringing along a little personal protection in the form of a handgun. "It's not like riding a bike, though," Will had explained to Tyler, who had watched avidly while Will cleaned the shiny pistol (obtained from Jimmy, the Hometown supplier of all things weapons-related) on the Castle's couch one Tuesday evening. They'd had the house to themselves, Jay, as always, being buried underneath a stack of legal volumes at the law library. "If you don't shoot for a while, you get rusty. My dad always said if you're gonna have a gun around, you better know how to use it, or else it'll get used on you. So I thought I'd go get in some practice."

Tyler had tentatively touched the dismantled weapon, looking awe-struck and fearful at the same time. "I've never held a gun before," he had confessed, sounding a tad defensive, as if he thought that might cost him manliness points with his roommate.

"Most people haven't, you know." Will had shrugged, totally casual about the whole encounter, letting Tyler believe the gun, like the video camera, was nothing special. "Look, you're welcome to come with if you'd like to try it out. I know you're pretty much anti-gun, but shooting's kind of cool, actually. When it's just paper targets, anyway," he had added, meaning it.

Tyler had readily agreed. And thus, by the next weekend, Tyler Fog was the proud owner of a brand-new, legally-purchased and fully-registered .9 millimeter pistol. Thereafter the once-a-week tradition of Will and Tyler tromping down to the shooting range was born.

Unfortunately, Tyler had not yet shown any aptitude as a marksman. Nevertheless, Will happily reported to Joseph that Tyler Fog was now a registered gun-owner, despite his reputed support of radical gun control, up to and including a complete ban on guns in the United States, who practiced his marksmanship weekly. Joseph had been nearly beside himself with pleasure.

_Glad to make you so happy, you bastard, _Will often thought while reading his handler's glowing email responses. _Does being a good little dog for Freed make up for letting the son of a bitch murder your daughter?_

Will would never forgive Joseph for Darian. He took a grim satisfaction out of manipulating Joseph the way Joseph had for years manipulated him: Each time he updated Joseph on the progress of the New Haven op, Will was securing his escape, for with every new success, he became less of a threat in the Partners' eyes. That meant the surveillance which Will suspected he had been under right after Darian Langdon's death continued to loosen, to slacken, leaving him with the freedom to continue betraying his employers.

_It may be a game of life-and-death, we may be playing for keeps, but it's still a game – and right now, I'm winning._

Secure in that knowledge, Will presented his roommates with the story about the job interview, hugged Kim and Nell goodbye (they each kissed him on the cheek for luck, which earned him no small amount of ribbing from Jay and Tyler), flew from New Haven to New York under an assumed name with his face hidden from the airport cameras by a Yankees baseball cap, and rented a car at La Guardia so he could drive to Fog's Manhattan apartment. The autumn sky looked like molten gold as the sun slowly sank; inside the glass-fronted, outward-facing elevator that led up to Fog's penthouse, Will took a moment to appreciate the view and to collect himself, to mentally prepare for meeting with Tyler's father.

Will had spoken to Fog in person only once since their initial meeting, and that time as the first, it had taken a supreme concentration of will for him not to be drawn in by Fog's paternal overtures. Will was dismayed that he found it necessary to summon every particle of hate he felt toward Fog over his father's death to keep himself from being charmed by the billionaire, to stop himself from automatically seeking Fog's approval. But regardless of how much psychological preparation it required, Will refused to be manipulated into viewing Fog as his surrogate father. He had made that mistake with Joseph Langdon; he would never make it again.

No matter how sincere Fog's concern for and pride in him appeared to be.

Stepping off into the gilded marble entryway outside Fog's apartment, Will discerned the tell-tale sounds of a party going on inside. Not unexpected, given how often Fog entertained, but not entirely welcome, either. Will was aware that many people involved with Hometown spent time with Fog, and he could not afford to be spotted here by someone who might report back on his presence to the Partners. Flipping open his cell phone, he dialed the secure line Fog had established for their communiqués and waited for the other man to answer.

"Hello, Will," Fog said smoothly into the receiver, without waiting for Will to speak. "I've been expecting you. Carlos will show you through to my study, just knock on the door."

"I thought we were having a private get-together," Will snapped back, prepared to leave. "If you're busy, I can come back some other time. It's not like I have any difficulty getting away for an afternoon here and there," he added sarcastically.

No amount of money could entice Will into chancing someone from Hometown seeing him in a clandestine meeting with Carlton Fog. That would be the end of all his well-laid plans – well, actually, that would just be "the end," period.

Fog sighed impatiently. "I'm entertaining some guests who have nothing to do with you, son. But I assure you, Carlos will be very discreet. It's a big apartment, I think he can get you to my study without marching you through the dining room, where everyone except myself is currently gathered. Or would you like to do this downstairs in the alley?"

Will smirked. He liked irking Fog, for the juvenile reason that he could without repercussion. "I'll be right in," he replied obediently, as if he had never suggested doing anything else. By now, Will knew Fog well enough to know that his refusal to show anger in return would infuriate the older man more than any snide comeback he could make.

Fog's study, on the second floor of the enormous penthouse apartment, was less formal but no less intimidating than the downstairs office. The last time Will had visited Fog, they had also met in the study, which was apparently not bugged like the office; Will supposed Fog conducted whatever business he didn't want the Partners to know about in his study, and he trusted that the older man was savvy enough to have made it a clean room and to check it regularly to be sure his defenses hadn't been breached. In any event, Will was smart enough not to start questioning Fog on the logistics of their meets: They might have been working together, but Will understood that in Fog's eyes, theirs remained a hierarchical relationship – and Will was not at the top of that hierarchy.

Carlos, a small Hispanic man in a butler's uniform, led Will upstairs to where Fog waited, looking disgruntled by the interruption to his evening. Or Will thought that was the problem, until Fog closed the door behind him, waved him into a chair, and dropped a manila folder into his lap before arranging himself (carefully, so as not to wrinkle his tuxedo) into a chair facing Will's.

"Look inside," Fog commanded without preamble, stabbing a finger at the folder. "Have you seen that man around anywhere?"

Heart pumping hard from sudden fear, hoping against hope that whatever had so set Fog on edge did not spell disaster for him or his roommates, Will concentrated on keeping his hands steady as he opened the folder. Inside were several glossy, black-and-white eight-by-ten photographs of a tall, powerfully-built black man with close-cropped hair and a block jaw. All were taken during the day, though apparently not the same day, since the man was wearing different clothes in each photo. Yet in every one, he was standing on the same street corner – a street Will recognized immediately, with a painful jolt in the region of his heart, as the street on which he, Jay and Tyler lived in New Haven.

How had he not seen this man? How had he overlooked someone watching the Castle from the same exact position on at least six different occasions?

_If I missed this guy, who else have I missed?_

"I know this street, obviously," Will confessed, closing the folder and placing it on the coffeetable between him and Fog. "But I've never seen this man before. Who is he?"

"His name is John Anselmo. He's former military."

"What's he doing staking out the Castle?"

Fog started. "The what?"

Will fought down a blush. Refusing to feel like a sophomoric kid, reminding himself that "the Castle" was one of his most clever undercover creations as Will Traveler, Will answered tightly, "The Castle. It's what we call our house in New Haven."

To his surprise, Fog grinned appreciatively. "That sounds like Tyler. He used to play knights and bandits all over our country estate. Even had me build him a tree-house so he'd have a tower to rescue the princess from." With a conspiratorial wink, Fog added, "Of course, when he got a little older, I think he took more than a few 'princesses' up to that tower for quite different reasons."

_Don't talk to me about Tyler, you son of a bitch, _Will wanted to say, anger curling in the pit of his stomach. _I watch your son wither inside a little bit everyday because he knows he'll never earn your approval, he'll never be enough for you to love. So cut the good daddy bullshit, because I know what a joke it is._

As always when his temper threatened to get the best of him, Will drew in a deep, calming breath and compartmentalized his emotions. When he was certain he could continue without his voice betraying his momentary fury, he pressed, "That doesn't answer my question. What does this Anselmo want in New Haven?"

"Anselmo used to be thick as thieves with Jack Freed." Fog seemed more relaxed now, making Will wonder if his reluctant partner's agitation had been mostly concern that Will was double-crossing him by working with Anselmo. "I don't know the details – not yet, anyway, but I have people on it, trust me. I do know that whatever happened to end their working relationship, it was nasty."

"He was military, you said?" Will was trying to put the pieces together, trying to figure out where and how this new player fit into his game. Was John Anselmo going to be an obstacle to Will and Maya's escape? Was he going to threaten Jay and Tyler?

If the answer to either one of those questions proved to be "yes," Will fully intended to remove Anselmo from the board entirely.

"He was First Recon." Fog watched Will closely, obviously gauging his reaction to the revelation. "Do you know what that is?"

Will was far too well-trained to let his expression give anything away, although he experienced another electric jolt beneath his heart. First Recon. Yes, he knew what that was – knew it from two sources, in fact.

Will's father had been First Recon. It was an elite branch of the Marines, even more elite than Delta Force or Navy Seals. Michael Davis had spoken only rarely of his military service. What Will knew about his father's involvement with the Marines came almost exclusively from the bits and pieces he had dug up here and there since joining Hometown; he had never diligently sought out his father's past, believing it irrelevant to the future, but simple curiosity had led him to use his security clearance on a couple of occasions to learn more about what Michael's life had been like before he was married with a baby. Other than the unit he had served in and the dates of his enlistment, however, Michael's military record had been as sparse on details as the man himself had been.

Will had never really wondered why that was, assuming if it meant anything at all it merely indicated an uneventful four-year commitment. Afterwards, Michael had gone on to devote his life to the Secret Service, where his First Recon skills undoubtedly had come in handy.

Now, Will wondered if what the record didn't contain spoke volumes about his father's military service – and about the direction his own life had taken. Was it possible that Jack Freed's interest in Jon-Michael Davis had stemmed from a closer relationship with Will's father, one related to Michael's military service, than Will had ever imagined?

That possibility seemed even more likely given the fact that Tom Burchell, Jay's father, had been First Recon as well.

Two fathers, two sons, both connected to the same super-elite Marine unit. Will did not believe in coincidences – he knew too many people who arranged for them to happen.

Something was rotten in Denmark, as the Bard would say.

As always, Will's remarkable mind connected the dots in seconds. Knowing better than to offer Carlton Fog the slightest tidbit of information about his true identity, Will rejoined without missing a beat, "Colonel Burchell was First Recon. Did he know Anselmo?"

"I don't know the answer to that yet. Like I said, my people are looking into it."

Fog crossed to his liquor cabinet and poured a glass of Scotch for himself and one for Will. While he did so, he went on, "Those pictures were taken on three different weekends, two in August and one in September. So far the only common denominator between those dates seems to be that they all fell while you were not at Yale."

Will's sat up a little straighter, nervous again. On the one hand, he was relieved to find that he had not overlooked Anselmo's presence after all; the other man had not made an appearance while Will was in the vicinity. That in and of itself, however, suggested that somehow or other, Anselmo was keeping tabs on Will's movements – and the fact that Fog knew where Anselmo was and when, and how that corresponded to whether or not Will was in town, said that Fog was also keeping an eye on things in New Haven. And probably on Will himself, if the truth was told.

_It's like living inside a fucking glass box, only the windows are tinted from the inside so I can't see who's looking in at me…_

Not for the first time, Will wondered with a thrill of terror if he had landed himself – and by extension Maya, Jay and Tyler – in the midst of a trap from which there would be no escape. Fighting the Partners, it was like fighting the Hydra: For every head he cut off, Will reflected darkly, two more seemed to spring up to take its place.

For every enemy and every potential threat he identified, two more he knew nothing about seemed to appear.

Well, it was run and hide or stand and fight. At least for the moment, Will decided to go with the latter course of action. He just couldn't overcome the rationale that the more natural his departure looked, coinciding as it would with the end of his operation, the safer he and Maya would be during their escape. Not to mention that he would have even more time to gather incriminating evidence against Hometown and to siphon off money from Fog, thereby ensuring their continued survival after their initial flight was achieved.

"So, any ideas what this Anselmo wants? Thanks," Will said, this last in reference to the glass of Scotch Fog placed in his hand. He sipped the smooth liquor gratefully, feeling it instantly steady his nerves.

Liquid courage, Michael Davis would have said.

"I'm sure it has something to do with Freed, and I'd say it has something to do with your mission in New Haven, or Anselmo wouldn't be watching my son and your other roommate. But beyond that, like I said, I am, for the time being, in the dark."

"Right." Will suspected Fog was rarely "in the dark" about much of anything. More than likely, whatever information he had, he simply wasn't prepared to share yet. "Then you told me this because…?"

"Well, first of all, I wanted to be sure this wasn't some trick of yours," Fog replied bluntly. Will returned the billionaire's quick grin, which seemed to say, _I don't trust you, you don't trust me, big deal. _"But I also thought you should know to keep an eye out for this man. Until we know what his endgame is, we have to assume that he could pose a danger to you."

Fog paused before adding, almost perfunctorily, "And to my son, of course."

The sincerity in Fog's eyes, his apparently heartfelt concern for Will's well-being, threatened the psychological defenses Will had put into place prior to their meeting. By recalling his father's hands folded across his chest at his funeral, Will was able to persuade himself that whatever Fog was up to, whatever his concerns were, Will's future was only of interest to him insofar as it affected the outcome of their business deal.

_Nice try, old man, but I'm not buying it – you're not any more concerned for me than you are for Tyler. You're worried about this guy posing a threat to you._

They sipped their Scotch in silence for a few minutes after that, each preoccupied with their own worries. Finally, Will, who was suddenly anxious to be in Deer Harbor so he could confirm with his own eyes that Maya was safe and sound, brought up the real reason for his visit: "I have more tapes for you," he announced, taking two disks from his back pocket and placing them beside the manila folder on the coffeetable. "And, I have a request."

The side of his mouth crooking up into a knowing smile, Fog countered, "For money."

"Well," Will grinned back, "I do have an 'incidental' account, I was told."

"You absolutely do, son, you absolutely do, and you've earned every dime so far. Name your price."

_Son. _Will decided he would never become accustomed to hearing Fog call him that. It no longer irritated him; it more saddened him, really, because he wished, for Tyler's sake – and, perhaps, for his own sake a little bit – that Carlton Fog was really a good, caring sort of father.

Leaving sentiment aside, Will as requested presented his price. Fog negotiated half-heartedly; he caved in rather quickly to Will's demands these days, whether because he truly liked Will and wanted to help him or because he wanted to give Will that exact impression, Will decided it was impossible to tell. The only thing that mattered, Will told himself, was that in the end, he rose to leave the Upper Eastside apartment with more than enough to pay off the boat, stock it with provisions for several months, and store it in a secure, secret location until his final directive was revealed and the time came to escape once and for all.

Will did not tell Fog what the extra money was for, and Fog, undoubtedly knowing he would receive either no reply or a lie, did not ask. He simply agreed to transfer the funds to Will's account later that night, once his party broke up.

"What're you celebrating this time?" Will couldn't stop himself asking, moving to the door of the study with Fog at his elbow. They had by now fallen into their usual, easy routine of witty repartee, both enjoying the challenge of verbally sparring with a worthy opponent. "Buy up another small country? I hear Singapore's nice this time of year."

Laughing, Fog laid a hand on Will's shoulder. "Singapore is nice any time of the year, Will, but it's a little beyond what even I can afford. No, this deal went down in Chicago. And," Fog faltered ever so slightly as, leading the way down the marble staircase, he saw, at the same time as Will, a small knot of well-dressed people standing beside the front doors, "speaking of Chicago, I've been neglecting all these guests who traveled so far to celebrate with me, haven't I?"

The people in the foyer glanced at Will – who had dressed, so as to blend in with Fog's Upper Eastside neighbors, in his Seven jeans and a gray, handmade wool sweater – with scant interest, probably assuming (if Will was in luck, anyway) that the unfamiliar face belonged to some junior associate in some obscure department at Fog Industries.

Only one member of the group seemed curious. The slender, pretty blond in a slinky red cocktail dress peeled herself away from the group, offering Fog a sugary-sweet smile as she approached them.

"You certainly haven't been a very attentive host this evening, Carlton."

"Ah, duty calls, my dear."

Having reached the bottom of the stairs, Fog steered a more-than-willing Will toward the door while the small group of partiers wandered in the opposite direction, toward the dining room where the sound of clinking china suggested dinner was underway. The blond, however, showed no signs of leaving, forcing Fog to go on, "But it's inexcusable for me to neglect _you_, since you masterminded the whole deal behind tonight's little fiesta."

The blond laughed. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes over-bright, and judging from the rapidity with which she was sipping from her goblet of red wine, Will had a feeling the woman was drunk.

_Please let her be drunk enough to forget me by morning…_

"Carlton, you're too sweet," the blond protested. "Mastermind is a bit much. I just…smoothed the way for the real masterminds."

Her ice-blue eyes went to Will, taking him in with a suggestive glance. "Hi," she greeted him coyly, extending her hand. "I don't think we've met."

Thinking fast, desperate to be out of the apartment and away from any other curious guests, Will hastily determined that the best way to handle a tipsy thirty-something who probably ate men for breakfast and who was probably accustomed to getting whatever – and whomever – she wanted was, in a word, charm.

Pure, unadulterated, I-can-buy-you-and-sell-you-but-first-let-me-kiss-you, Daniel Taft-style charm.

Lifting her fingers to his lips, Will replied silkily, "I'm sure we haven't, because I'd remember you."

As the blond laughed again, Will cut his eyes to Fog, silently demanding that the billionaire – who had insisted, after all, that their meeting would remain private – rescue him from this sticky situation. Before Fog could do anything, however, fate intervened – and for once, luck was on Will's side: A dark-haired man poked his head out of the dining room and called, "Carlton, Kate, c'mon, we're about to open the champagne and cut the cake!"

"Better be going." Fog slipped his arm through the woman's and drew her away from Will. "Thanks for stopping by, son. I'll call you later on, all right?"

"Nice to meet you," the blond called Kate tittered at Will, who offered her his sexiest smile before she disappeared around the corner with Fog.

Only then did Will blow out a huge sigh of relief. Disaster averted, if barely: No names had been exchanged, no reasons for his presence had been requested or offered, and with any luck at all, the blond would be too befuddled with wine and bubbly by the end of the night (if she wasn't already) to remember that she had met anyone unusual in Fog's apartment. Or, at least, she likely wouldn't recall the details of the visitor with any specificity.

Fog had said no one at the party was involved with Hometown. Will decided he had no choice but to trust that Fog knew what was he talking about; he at least seemed to be more in the know than Will was, seeing as how he had identified Anselmo as a possible threat, whereas Will had been completely in the dark on that one.

The train ride to Deer Harbor was a restless one for Will, who couldn't shake his growing concern that perhaps, despite all of his precautions, he had not been cautious enough. He simply didn't know enough about the players in this game to predict who might be involved and what angle they might be working. He had gone and jumped into the viper's nest believing he could charm the snakes into submission. Only now was he starting to fully appreciate the complexity of warding off dozens of poisonous, hungry snakes at once, all of which wanted a different bite out of him.

_So walk away. Grab Maya, go to the boat, stock it, and never set foot back in New Haven again._

_And what then? Run forever, with half the money I'd planned on and half the evidence I'd counted on? _

By the time he stepped onto the platform in Deer Harbor, Will's mind was once again made up: If he ran now, he was risking everything, quite possibly for no better reason than paranoia. If he stayed, even if it turned out that he was wrong, that he really was under suspicion, Will still believed that he and Maya would have a better chance of escaping – and of surviving after their escape – once his final directive was completed.

He would just have to be more careful, that was all. He would just have to be more vigilant, more aware, more attuned to what was going on around him. No more reveling in the life of Will Traveler. No more true goofing off or having fun. He would have to be _on, _would have to be an operative, all the time. It was a tall order, yet for Maya, for Jay and Tyler, for himself, Will believed he could do it.

Maya was not expecting Will. He had no way of safely contacting her between scheduled meets; the last thing he wanted was Hometown becoming suspicious of his relationship with Maya, since somehow, they seemed to still be in the dark about the romance. Thus she did not know that Will had scheduled another meet with Fog after saying goodbye to her in September, nor that he would be slipping into a town a day early once that meet was over.

Will rather liked the idea of surprising Maya. He could picture her curled up on the couch in the living room, a book in her lap (probably something by Jane Austen, she rotated through the classic authors fairly regularly. Since last month she had been on Charlotte Bronte, he suspected she was still amongst Victorian women), her red satin robe clinging to every curve – well, okay, Will had to admit that he doubted Maya was _actually _wearing her sexy little red robe while alone in the house, but hey, it was his fantasy. And it helped to keep him warm on the long, crisp walk from Deer Harbor (which had no taxi service) to the Sanders' homestead.

So did picturing the bright smile that would light up her blue-grey eyes when he unlocked the back door and stepped in, a whole day ahead of schedule.

Stolen moments. For now, they had to make do with stolen moments. Soon, though, Will promised himself, they would have all the time in the world together, and no one would ever separate them again.

By the time he slid his key into the lock, Maya's house was completely dark – it was past midnight, and fantasies aside, Will knew Maya was an early-to-bed kind of girl. He deposited his bags in the living room and stole silently up the stairs, bone-weary with exhaustion himself yet suddenly, achingly, desperately anxious to wrap his arms around the woman he loved, to revel in her nearness, her solid warmth.

In New Haven, Will would sometimes wake in the dead of night with a terrible, unshakeable sense of dread that seemed to attach itself directly to Maya. He would lie awake all night when that happened, wondering how he would know in time to rescue her if something were to go wrong, if someone were to hurt her. His only consolation in those moments was to remind himself that the Partners had no reason to go after Maya. Even if his betrayal were discovered, he would be their primary target; Maya they would certainly dispose of, but she would be an after-thought, a minor mishap to clear up once the real threat – Will – was done away with. So as long as he was safe, Will would reason with his frantic mind, Maya in all likelihood was, too.

That same sense caught up to Will halfway up Maya's staircase. The fear was so real, so palpable, it actually brought him to a standstill – he could not make his feet move forward, could not make himself close the short distance between where he stood and Maya's bedroom door. All he could think was that if he opened that door and found her dead, found her like Sela Langdon had found Darian, the world would end.

_I couldn't go on without her. _

_Could I?_

Will drew in a deep, steadying breath, closing his eyes in an attempt to blot out the horrific mental image of discovering his lover's murdered body. When he opened them, he forced himself to move, shutting down his emotions and relying on the same instincts he counted on to keep him moving in spite of the mind-numbing fear when he was dodging bullets in a shoot-out.

In seconds, Will was inside Maya's room.

Where he found her sleeping peacefully, like an angel dusted with moonlight from the half-open curtains.

Will kicked off his shoes before crawling fully-clothed under the covers. Maya woke immediately, her eyes round with fear for the briefest instant until she recognized him. "Will?" she half-whispered, instinctively lifting a hand to his cheek, confirming for herself that he was all right. Her voice, thick with sleep, conveyed a sudden fearfulness. "What's happened?"

"Nothing." Will snuggled close and kissed Maya's forehead. She moved eagerly into his arms, her head fitting perfectly against his chest.

_My missing piece…_

"I just missed you, that's all. So I came a little early."

"Mmm, missed you, too," Maya confessed sleepily. "I was dreaming about you just now."

"Then I walked out of your dreams," Will said back, smiling to think that Maya missed him even when she was asleep – because he missed her then, too. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I'll be here in the morning."

"That's my favorite thing. When you're here…"

As Maya drifted off in his arms, Will thought again of the boat that awaited them in a Boston marina, of the escape they could make that very night if they wanted. Another opportunity like this one might never present itself, he suddenly realized: Hometown thought he was in New Haven, Fog had no idea where he was, and Jay and Tyler believed he was in New York. They could throw on some clothes, pack some food, hop in the Jeep and be on the water before dawn. Be in the Caribbean not too long after.

Be ghosts.

Be free.

Later, Will would look back on that night with stinging regret for his decision not to leave. He would question that decision with a soul-probing precision he could not muster at the time, and the conclusion he would come to would be simple: On that night, he wasn't ready to give up being Will Traveler. The danger did not yet seem real enough; the pieces that would later fall into place – the woman called Kate meeting with Fog, the man named Anselmo spying on Jay and Tyler, the coincidence of two fathers belonging to the same elite military unit – did not yet create a coherent whole. His plan still seemed like a good one. On that night, the smartest play still seemed to be seeing the mission through, walking away under the cover of disappearing after an op, as Hometown would expect him to do, rather than attempting to out-maneuver them while they were continuing to watch him and the other players in their little drama so closely.

Will had accepted that one day, sooner rather than later, he would have to start a new life, a life unlike any other he had ever known. He was prepared to take that risk. But on that night, he wasn't ready to face never seeing Jay and Tyler again; he wasn't ready to face never seeing Kim or Nell again; he wasn't ready to face never seeing Maya stand behind the counter of her shop again. He wasn't ready to be a ghost, or to make Maya one; he wasn't ready to be revealed to Jay, Tyler, Kim and Nell as the enemy. He was, despite all of the peril in his world, happy as Will Traveler, for reasons even he hardly understood at the time – would only understand later, once everything fell apart.

And so, as his last best chance for a happy ending slipped away, Will lingered for a time in the happiness of blissful ignorance, in the security of the present that would seem so naïve once the present became his past. But on that night, the future was still unknown. On that night, Will Traveler closed his eyes, gathered Maya's slender form tighter to him, buried his nose in her sweet-smelling hair, and escaped into pleasant dreams where everyone he loved was safe, content, and – most importantly – together.

_**Author's Note: **__No, this is not the end (though that rapidly approaches!), and yes, Anselmo is The Porter. I'm working off some of what David DiGilio posted on his TvGuide blog as closure for the fans after the series' sad fate was officially sealed. In that post, David told us that the Porter was "a rogue CIA agent named Jon Anselmo. He ran a CIA black ops team in Pakistan and was taken out because someone in the Fourth Branch did not want a certain high- level terrorist captured just yet." _

_I'm going to use David's post in my own way, since I obviously have my own backstory for Will going here. I'm taking the liberty of using bits and pieces of his blog to fit the fic I've created. But I didn't feel like a Traveler prequel would be complete without the Porter! So please review and let me know what you think about where the story is headed, and how the ending is coming together._


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19:**

**The Future**

_New Haven_

_Seven months before Drexler bombing_

With each passing day, Will expected the call to come delivering his final directive. The wait was in some ways unbearable; Will was exhausted, mentally and physically, from constantly looking over his shoulder, from watching his every word and gesture to ensure that neither his roommates nor Hometown's spies nor Fog's people nor unknowable characters like Anselmo would catch onto his deceptions.

In other ways, however, Will welcomed the delay. For one thing, every day he spent with Jay and Tyler was another set of memories to store up for the rest of his life when he wouldn't know them. For another, the longer the Partners waited to move onto checkmate, the longer Will had to prepare himself and his roommates for what was coming.

It had not been much of a leap for Will to go from manipulating his friends into the tactical training Hometown wanted them to appear to have to actually training them, at least in small ways, in how to survive in the world of espionage. The methods were the same; to prepare Jay and Tyler for fighting back against spies and assassins, Will didn't need to do anything outside the parameters of his Hometown-approved mission. But his intentions in working with Jay on martial arts, with Tyler on marksmanship, and, by the end of their second fall semester at Yale, with both of them on how to sneak in and out of a building and how to escape swiftly when being chased had nothing to do with framing them.

Will wanted to be sure his friends didn't become "collateral damage" once he wasn't around to protect them.

The possibility that Hometown might want more than Jay and Tyler's freedom, that the Partners might want their very lives, had not occurred to Will until October, when a late-night conversation amongst the trio (recorded, as ever, for Will's "video blog") veered in the direction of government conspiracies. Jay was writing an article for the Yale law review on the legality of detaining suspected terrorists without charges under the Patriot Act, and Will, like a good little operative, asked his friend to go "on the record" about his research.

"The only way the law will ever be changed is if the Supreme Court declares the Patriot Act unconstitutional," Jay observed grimly. He was reclining on one of the Castle's two couches with his head propped on a stack of pillows. "Congress will never repeal it. They've already proven that."

"You think it'd matter if Shears didn't have a constitutional right to lock people up for no reason?" Tyler challenged. He was kicked back in the recliner opposite Jay; Will, seated on the other sofa in between them, swiveled the camera from Jay to Tyler, whose expression said clearly that he was up for one of his long-winded tirades against the Shears administration. "C'mon. Don't be naïve, Jay. The government's put people in jail for whatever they wanted to for as long as anybody can remember."

Jay shrugged. "First day of law school they told us to check our ideals at the door. I'm not saying the government does or doesn't lock people up without good reason, I'm just saying the Patriot Act makes it so they don't even have to fake up a reason."

Feeling decidedly uncomfortable with the turn the conversation was taking – after all, he had framed several people for the government – Will forced himself to compartmentalize his emotions, to keep his roommates talking, because Jay appeared ready to shut down rather than engage in a heated debate on the issue with Tyler. "So, Tyler," Will prompted, keeping the camera on the billionaire's son as a tried-and-true way of loosening Tyler's tongue, "you say the government puts innocent people in jail. Got any examples?"

"Oh, you know, Lee Harvey Oswald," Tyler answered readily.

Smirking, Jay piped up, "Beg to differ."

Will turned the camera back to Jay, hoping it wouldn't cause his friend to clam up as it sometimes did. This time, though, it appeared that whatever Jay had to say, it was important enough to him that the camera didn't phase him.

"Please explain, Jay," Will urged, eliciting snickers from his friends with his mock-interviewer tone. "You think Oswald was the lone gunman?"

"No," Jay answered with a triumphant grin. "I don't have any idea who killed President Kennedy. But I do know Oswald never went to jail for it."

"Yeah," Tyler retorted, as the camera came around on him again, "because Jack Ruby killed him, Jay. Are you saying it lets the government off the hook if they kill somebody instead of sending them to prison?"

Jay sat up to take a swig from his half-empty bottle of Sam Adams. Mildly, he replied, "No, I'm not saying that at all. I don't know if the government had anything to do with Oswald's death. But I do know that if it was a conspiracy, Ruby did them a huge favor, because he saw to it that Oswald never got a trial.

"Say what you want about the government putting people away without proof," he concluded, falling back on the cushions, "but before the Patriot Act, they would've at least had to make a good show of it, convince a grand jury and a judge and then twelve jurors that Oswald was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. With him dead, though, all the evidence they'd have needed to produce got buried right along with him."

As he listened to Jay's well-reasoned theory, Will's blood ran cold. Jay was right: Covering up a major conspiracy like the JFK assassination (assuming it was a conspiracy, of course) would have required a massive amount of resources. Trying to prove an innocent man's guilt in a court of law while hiding what really happened would have been almost impossible, even for an entity as powerful as the United States government; Will worked for that entity, and he knew that they much preferred to operate in the shadows. A highly-publicized trial employing dozens of prosecutors and defense attorneys, scrutinized by investigative journalists and followed closely by a curious and outraged public – that would have been a logistical nightmare for the masterminds behind Kennedy's death. The chances that some vital piece of evidence would fall into the wrong hands, causing the whole scheme to unravel, were astronomical with so many people involved.

Sitting there in the Castle's living room, the horrible realization dawned on Will that whatever he would be framing Jay and Tyler for, regardless of whom (or what) the target ended up being, would ignite a firestorm of media attention for the simple fact that the crime would be an act of terrorism. Before it was over, Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog would be household names, like Lee Harvey Oswald and Osama Bin Laden. Their trials would be covered by every media outlet in the country, large and small; the world would be watching, gobbling up every sordid detail, begging for more and more and more information about the accused and their alleged crime. And all of that attention would be in addition to the lawyers, both for the prosecution and the defense, and the paralegals and law clerks and jurors and prison guards and all of the other officials who would be involved in putting Jay and Tyler in prison. As with the Oswald trial, the possibility of a secret being leaked, of the plot coming apart because of one misspoken word or overheard conversation, would be much too great to allow a man like Jack Freed any sleep at night.

_It would be easier, safer, simpler, just to kill them. _

Would that be his final directive?

Will suddenly felt sick at his stomach. His roommates continued discussing the finer points of government conspiracies and the Patriot Act, but Will only half-listened. He sat there wrestling with his conscience, wondering what he would do if ordered to kill his roommates.

In the end, the answer to that question was simple and absolute: He would disobey. Will had resigned himself to leaving Jay and Tyler somewhat in the hands of fate; by securing Carlton Fog's help to clear their names, he had done all he felt he could to protect them without signing his and Maya's death warrants. But Will knew, in his heart of hearts, that he would never sacrifice his roommates to save himself. He would die first.

_What about to save Maya? Would I sacrifice them to save Maya?_

While that question was more difficult to answer, in the end, the conclusion he reached was the same: Will would never kill Jay or Tyler, not for anyone.

That solved one problem – if Will wouldn't kill them, they were safe from him. Yet Will understood the people he worked for well enough to know that just because one operative refused to carry out orders, they wouldn't throw their hands up, shrug, and walk away. If they wanted Jay and Tyler dead, the Partners would, Will was certain, send someone else to do what he would not – what he could not.

Thus, Will determined as he lay down to sleep that very night that before his final directive came down, he needed to prepare Jay and Tyler to look out for themselves in case the Partners opted to send them to their graves instead of prison.

Jay was already progressing significantly in his martial arts proficiency by that time, and Tyler, while he would never qualify for sniper school, had begun to hit more targets than he missed. Will knew Jay could handle guns, and probably knives as well; Tyler didn't have formal hand-to-hand combat training, but he was a big enough guy to hold his own in a fight so long as his opponent wasn't too well-trained.

What concerned Will more than anything was his roommates' ability to get away if it came time to run.

Although Will thought of himself as a reasonably brave guy, one of the first and most valuable lessons Alex had taught him was to know when to fight and when to run like hell. No matter how capable they were, Jay and Tyler, Will knew, would be much better off choosing that second option if Hometown decided to take them out.

Luckily, the law school versus med school annual prank gave Will a perfect excuse to teach Jay and Tyler what Alex had called "escape scenarios." Traditionally, the first-year law students and first-year med students were the ones who pulled the prank, yet the previous year's grand finale, masterminded in part by Will and in part by his roommates, had become so legendary on campus that Will had no trouble persuading his friends that they should revamp the tradition a smidge and prove that they could still pull off a good, fun-loving hoax against their rivals, the second-year med students. As he had the year before, Will came up with the plan – only this time, he insisted that nobody but he, Jay, Tyler, Kim, Nell and Rabbit be in on the joke.

Over black-and-tans at their favorite local bar shortly before Thanksgiving, while snow piled up outside the windows, their six-member squad huddled together in an isolated corner booth as Will laid out his idea. "So the second-year med students have a practical anatomy exam at the end of this semester, right?" he began.

Nell lifted a hand. "Hang on a sec. Does this have anything to do with stuffing Twinkies into cadavers? Because if it does, that is just too gross."

Rabbit giggled. "Depends on where you're stuffing 'em, if you ask me."

Grinning along with everyone else, Will assured Nell (who was tucked neatly beneath Tyler's protective arm in a way that made Will miss Maya desperately), "No, nothing to do with stuffing cadavers. I'm not big on corpses myself. But this exam, I take classes with a guy who works night maintenance over in the med school anatomy lab, and he said that to do the dissection the students have to have a sterile dissection tray. The lab supervisor sets all of that up for them the night before, apparently, 'cause this guy was griping about how impossible it is to clean around all that stuff without messing any of it up.

"So I was thinking," Will concluded, looking around to see how his friends would react to his scheme, "that we could mess with those trays, give the students a little something to freak out about right when their exam starts."

Jay, whose own painfully-difficult exams were looming, groaned. "Oh man. I don't know, Will, screwing with an _exam_? That could be bad karma."

As usual, Tyler jumped right in to advocate for the trouble-making. "C'mon, Jay, you were the one last year who kept objecting, and nothing bad came of that, did it?"

_It's Darian. She's dead. _

The memory of the phone call he had received just after last year's prank brought a sudden lump to Will's throat. Swallowing it determinedly – he couldn't afford to let Jay off the hook now, for he'd never get him back when he wasn't surrounded by friends who could join in the persuading – Will countered, "It wouldn't be like they couldn't take their exam, Jay. The supply closets in the med school are stacked full of those dissection trays. It'd just be, you know, a nasty little surprise for them to start the day."

Nell piped up, "It's true. They do have all kinds of those things."

Rabbit cocked a quizzical eyebrow across the table at Tyler's girlfriend. "Something you'd like to share, Nell? Been slicing up dead bodies in the middle of the night?"

Everyone laughed at the prospect of prim-and-proper Nell dipping her manicured hands into anything fouler than dishwater. "I work at the bookstore," Nell explained, tossing a tortilla chip from the appetizer bowl at Rabbit, who, in the process of ducking, ended up with her head half on Will's shoulder. "I fill orders for those damn dissection trays all the time, and then I have to get somebody from the med school to come cart them across campus to restock their supplies. It's a real pain in the ass, actually."

Will shifted discreetly to the side so Rabbit was not quite so close. Ever since they had spent a good portion of the summer hanging out together, Rabbit seemed to have forgotten her vow to leave Will to his mystery girl in Maine – and Kim, now smirking knowingly at Will from the other side of Jay, didn't help matters any by acting as if it was only a matter of time before the supposed romance rekindled. A sticky situation, to be sure, and one Will had no time or patience for with everything else going on in his life.

"Your plan wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the fact that Nell has easy access to these trays, would it?" Tyler was saying. His tone suggested sincere admiration for Will's hoax-plotting abilities.

"Well, like I said, I did get the idea from listening to this guy I know. But yeah," Will admitted, serving up the trademark Traveler grin with a I'm-too-much-trouble-for-words-but-you-love-me twist, "I was hoping Nell would be able to get us a few of those trays. If you could sneak out about a dozen," he said to Nell, "we could do our tampering in the privacy of the Castle, and not have to mess with it once we're actually in the med school."

Always game for mischief, just like her boyfriend, Nell agreed readily. "No problem. Nobody has any clue how many of those stupid things are actually in the back storeroom – I'll just start slipping some into my bag before I leave."

Jay cleared his throat. "Okay, guys, two things." He held up his hands for silence when cries of protest sounded around the table; only Will remained quiet, understanding the necessity of letting Jay say his peace before he could be convinced to throw his hand in with them. "Just lemme get this out, all right? I'm not saying no. I'm just…I just want to be sure we've thought about all the angles here."

Kim waggled her eyebrows playfully at their group. "Jay's big on working out the 'angles.'"

As Jay's cheeks turned a boyishly-charming shade of brick-red, they all laughed together. Beside him, Will felt Rabbit edge ever-so-slightly closer, until the tips of her fingers brushed against his hand where it rested beside him on the vinyl booth. He casually drew his hand away to scoop up more chips and salsa from the plate in the center of the table.

"Anyway," Jay went on, somewhat flustered by Kim's remark, "this is obviously at Nell's discretion, but taking those trays out of the bookstore without permission is shoplifting."

"Not if I pay for them," Nell pointed out. "I can do that without telling anybody I'm taking them."

"Wouldn't that be expensive?" Kim worried.

"Benefits of having a loaded boyfriend," Tyler joked.

Will and Jay exchanged a quick glance of concern. At the end of the spring semester, Tyler had finally confessed to them that his father had cut him off. The revelation had come after Carlton canceled a long-standing dinner date with his eldest son, sending Tyler into the depths of alcoholic despair; when Will and Jay had returned from a run and discovered their roommate drinking himself into oblivion, Will had suggested going out for an expensive meal on Carlton's tab, only to have Tyler inform them that his credit cards, not his father's money, had been financing his lifestyle (and, to a large extent, theirs, since he insisted on paying for everything) all year long.

Since then, Will and Jay had managed to check Tyler's spending without making too much of an issue out of it – basically, they just whipped out their own wallets before Tyler could get to his and avoided any activities more expensive than an occasional night at the cinema. But they both knew that Tyler had yet to let Nell in on his little secret. His determination to treat her the way he felt a man with money should treat his girlfriend, even though Nell never appeared to expect or demand any such treatment, unsettled both of his roommates, who saw the collection letters from various credit card companies Tyler stuffed into the trashcan without opening.

Nevertheless, the middle of a crowded bar was not the place to delve into Tyler's financial woes. So Will and Jay reached a swift, silent agreement to let the problem go for another day.

"All right," Jay countered. "That's one issue resolved. But I also take it that to pull this off we're going to need access to the med school anatomy lab after hours. And something tells me we're not going to have any sort of official permission to be there."

Will knew this would be the most delicate part of the negotiation with Jay. More importantly, the breaking-and-entering aspect of the joke was, for Will's purposes, the whole point of the prank: He wanted Jay and Tyler to learn how to evade capture, and this hoax, if Jay would agree to it, would allow him to give them that practice because they would be the ones distracting the security guards while Will and the girls switched out the trays.

After conceding that no, they would not have authorization to be in the lab, and that yes, the labs were guarded by Yale security officers, Will outlined the details of his plan. "Before you refuse," he insisted to Jay, who leaned back in the booth with the air of a defense attorney who knows his client is about to be acquitted because his arguments are irrefutable, "just hear me out. Okay?"

"Okay." Jay shrugged. "I'm listening."

Will sat forward slightly. So did the others, including Jay, which told Will his plan had a good chance of being enacted – reluctant though he was, Jay was also, Will knew, not immune to the allure of the attention they would all receive if they pulled off a second spectacular prank.

"All right, here's the deal. We get the trays from Nell, take them to the Castle, and super-glue the instruments onto them, all the scalpels and everything, then seal them back up so nobody can tell they've been tampered with. Then the night before the exam, after the lab supervisor's got everything set up, I can get my friend to let us in through the back door – I haven't asked him yet, but he's cool, I know he'll do it."

Actually, the guy Will was thinking of was a wiry red-headed genius of twenty named Ansel Gregory. One of those child prodigies who had managed to graduate from high school at thirteen and had gone directly on to Ivy League college, Ansel hero-worshipped Will; he was a first-year student in the chemical engineering Master's program, and from day one he had decided that Will was the coolest person on the planet. Will was kind to the boy because his gawky appearance and painful social awkwardness reminded him of the few friends he'd had at the Edon Academy, those other boys who had attended only on scholarship or whose families hadn't been wealthy and important enough to protect them from the bigger, richer bullies. Will knew that if he asked Ansel to blow up the med school labs, the kid would probably do it unquestioningly, so opening up a door for Will and his friends after-hours was hardly going to be something Ansel would blanch at doing.

And since they wouldn't get caught – Will was supremely confident in this, having wormed his way out of much tighter spots than being in an anatomy lab without permission – Ansel would never suffer any ill-effects from his complicity in the prank. Thus Will didn't even have to feel guilty for involving him.

"Once we're inside, we'll have to distract the security guards," Will continued. He saw Jay wince and hurried on. "Tyler, Jay, this is where you guys come in. There's just one guard, according to my friend, but he'll probably call for backup so you may have a couple or three to deal with at some point. I'm thinking you'll need to lead them on some kind of chase through the building."

Tyler groaned. "Does this mean I'm gonna have to start waking up at the crack of dawn to go running with you guys? 'Cause if it is, count me out."

Will shook his head. "I don't think running would be a good idea. It seems, I dunno, threatening or something, and we want to make sure they know this is a prank, not an actual break-in."

Rabbit giggled. "Yeah, we don't want Tyler and Jay's mug shots on the six o'clock news."

"I was thinking more like roller skates," Will went on. "Something like that would really freak the guard out, really distract him, but it's also pretty obviously some kind of prank, you know?"

Tyler shook his head in mock-astonishment. "Will Traveler, hoaxster extraordinaire. I tell you what, man, I'm not gonna be surprised if I find out someday your nerdy little ass is behind creating like a super-secret nuclear weapon or something."

Glossing over this (Will was always decidedly uncomfortable when he had to reveal the extent of his deceptive abilities, because it obviously threatened his cover for his friends to think of him as sneaky), Will hastily finished off his plan. "While you guys keep the guards busy, the girls and I will put the super-glued trays in the lab and take the other ones back to the supply closet. That way," he emphasized for Jay's benefit, "when they open up the trays in the morning and can't get the instruments off of them, they'll figure out that they've been had, but they can still get new trays from the closet and go right on with their exam."

"I love it," Kim declared. "Clean, simple, and smart."

"And small chances of anybody ending up strapped to a cross in the freezing cold," Rabbit pointed out, digging her elbow playfully into Will's ribs. "I'd say our darling boy has come up with another winner."

With everyone else clearly on board, Will turned to the sole hold-out. "How 'bout it, Jay?" he prompted, careful to keep his tone even, to let the implication that whatever Jay decided would be final and unquestioned ring clearly in his words.

_Trust me, _Will's smile seemed to say, _I'll never get you in trouble. _

Jay hesitated, thinking it over. Kim batted her eyelashes at her boyfriend, affecting her best puppy-dog look. "C'mon, Jay, how about it? It's just a prank. We're not vandalizing anything or hurting anybody. Even if we got caught we wouldn't really be in trouble."

Tyler chimed in, "I think it sounds like a blast. Coolest prank that's ever been pulled here, probably. Although," he added with a grin, "I haven't been on a pair of skates in like a decade, so we might need to practice that, or I'll be busting my ass for the big finale."

"We'd have to recon the building." Jay seemed to be joining in their scheming almost in spite of himself. Will hid a grin behind his hand, seeing Rabbit do the same beside him; no matter how straight-laced he acted, Jay had a mischievous streak just like his roommates. "Walk through it, see where the stairwells are, plot out some routes so we'd know where to go to stay ahead of the guards."

Will could have cheered. That was exactly the sort of thinking he wanted to see Jay and Tyler doing; he wasn't surprised that Jay would arrive at that point before Tyler, since Jay was a natural-born planner whereas Tyler was far more spontaneous, but knowing his friends would be together after he was gone calmed Will's concerns for Tyler. In fact, the combination of Jay's foresight and Tyler's impulsiveness might end up being better for their survival in the long run than if both of them were always checking out the "angles" beforehand, as Jay had put it. One thing Will had seen time and again while on a mission was that thinking on one's feet and improvising often meant the difference between success and failure.

Or, in this case, perhaps between life and death.

_They can do this. They're smart, they're capable, they're tough. And we've still got time for me to get them ready – ready for what comes after, when I'm gone, when it's just the two of them against the world…_

And so, with a minimum of fuss, the plan was put into action, and Will had a perfect excuse to continue training his friends in skills that could save their lives once his final directive came down. He tried not to think too hard about everything that could go wrong, about the highly-trained operatives Jay and Tyler might come up against whom they would be no match for; he tried to remember that Fog was taking steps to protect them, too. Between their own wits and wiles and Fog's guardianship, Will had to believe his roommates would be able to out-maneuver the Partners long enough for the truth to come out and their innocence to be proclaimed.

Besides, Will constantly reminded himself, he had no proof that his final directive would involve murdering his roommates. He told himself that he was only being prudent, that in all likelihood, Jay and Tyler would never need the skills he was teaching them.

Still, Will felt better every time Tyler nailed another target or Jay took down an opponent with a well-placed roundhouse kick. He definitely felt better once he had subtly instructed them, during a half-dozen walk-throughs of the med school lab, in how to "read" a building's escape routes (windows, emergency-exit stairwells, side doors) and to anticipate where confrontations would be most likely to occur (cross-sections of hallways, closed staircases, dark corridors, blind corners).

By finals week, they were ready to pull off their prank and, Will hoped, to survive whatever Hometown might throw at them in the near future.

The big night arrived right along with a veritable blizzard, which made the pranksters all thankful that they weren't dragging fire-hoses through the quad as part of this hoax. Will recounted for the millionth time his story of being double-crossed by Eddie Hahn while they worked their way through two large, deep-dish supreme pizzas in the Castle's warm and cozy kitchen.

It was only the six of them this time, no rowdy crowds of law and business students, so when Rabbit slipped outside for a smoke, Will stayed indoors. He wasn't up for anymore sexual tension, and lately whenever he was alone with the waifish artist, her advances were becoming bolder and more persistent.

As the clock ticked toward midnight, their agreed upon time to start for the med school lab since Ansel had assured them the supervisor was always gone by eleven-thirty at the latest, Kim produced her camera and began snapping photos to "document" their brilliant scheme. Will, as usual when Kim's camera came out, managed to avoid having his photo taken by hiding behind his own camera. "I can't wait to see this one on your blog," Nell declared, ruffling Will's hair as she walked past where he was seated beside Jay on the couch. "You're really clever with that thing, you know. I know like a dozen people who read it everyday."

"Will's a man of many talents," Rabbit bragged from the kitchen doorway, where she was preparing to step out for one last cigarette before they hit the snow-covered roads in Tyler's SUV. "Care to join me for a smoke, Mr. Renaissance Man?"

Will could hardly turn down an official invitation, so he reluctantly stood up and started for the door. "Just a sec," Tyler suddenly said, calling Will back into the living room. "We need to have a roommate conference. Jay, Will, kitchen, if you please."

Jay and Will exchanged puzzled looks as they followed Tyler into the kitchen. "Something wrong?" Jay quizzed his friend.

Tyler motioned for his roommates to join him at the counter, as far away from the living room where the girls were as possible. "No, everything's perfect, actually," he replied, an ear-to-ear grin lighting up his face. From the pocket of his Seven jeans, he produced a small, distinctive blue box, one Will recognized right away as belonging to the iconic jewelry store Tiffany's.

_Holy shit, he's proposing to Nell…_

It didn't take a spy to see that Tyler and Nell were crazy over another. Nevertheless, Will found he wasn't prepared for the torrent of emotions that accompanied Tyler's obvious decision to propose: Here he was, making a plan for the rest of his life, scripting out his future with the woman he loved just like Will was doing with Maya, without the slightest clue that very, very soon, in ways not even Will could fully imagine, his whole future would change.

The guilt, as always, was so overwhelming it stole Will's breath.

"Oh, man," Jay murmured, staring wide-eyed at the box. "Is that a…?"

"Engagement ring. Yup." Tyler flipped open the lid to reveal a spectacular princess-cut diamond. Will, who had seen some impressive pieces of jewelry in his time, had to admit that the ring was gorgeous – and, what was more, perfect for Nell, because although it was definitely expensive, it wasn't gaudy. It was understated in its elegance, like the woman who would wear it.

"You're proposing tonight?" Jay sounded incredulous.

"I've been carrying this thing around for weeks," Tyler confessed sheepishly. Will shared a sympathetic grin with him; he had been so damn nervous to give Maya her music box for Christmas, which had basically been like a proposal, he had hardly slept for days beforehand. "I don't know why, but I just know, tonight's the night. Nell loves this kind of stuff, this prank we're pulling, and…I don't know, it just seems like a good time, when we're all together doing something that's so, you know, unique to our friendship, or whatever."

Sentiment didn't come easy to any of the three young men gathered in the kitchen, but Jay and Will, being desperately in love with amazing women themselves, each clearly understood what Tyler was trying to convey. "I get it, man," Will assured his friend, clapping an encouraging hand on Tyler's shoulder. "Whatta you need us to do? Anything?"

"Well, when we get to the IHOP afterwards, I'm just going to kind of spring it on her, but I wanted you guys to know what I was going to do. To be like, moral support for me, or something."

"You sure you don't want to do it now?" Jay prompted. "Get it out of the way so you're not worrying about it while we're being chased by security?"

Tyler met Will's eyes, and they both laughed. "Christ, Jay, we're talking about me asking Nell to marry me – I think that's a little more important than pulling off a prank, don't you?"

Blushing, Jay hurriedly back-tracked. "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant…Well, if we get caught, it'll blow your whole plan, right?"

"We won't get caught. You've got even more motivation now than ever to do like we talked about."

Will seized the chance to give his friends one final pre-mission pep talk. He could only hope that when the final directive came down, he would have such a golden opportunity to remind them of everything they needed to do, to watch out for, to protect themselves.

Placing an arm around each one of his roommates' shoulders, Will went over the plan one final time. "Keep your eyes open for the other guards to arrive, 'cause you know this lone dude is gonna call for back-up when he sees two guys skating through the building after-hours. Make sure you keep them out of the third-floor hallway, since we have to get out to the supply closet. Give us ten minutes, and then head down the south stairwell and out into the alley – you'll be far enough ahead of the guards to slip into the parking garage next door, and we'll pick you up at the north entrance in Tyler's car."

"We've got it down, Will, don't worry," Tyler assured him, tucking the ring box into his pocket. "Nothing's going to go wrong tonight. I just feel it."

"Hey!" Kim's voice from the doorway brought all three of their heads up. She was standing with her camera poised, grinning. "Everybody say cheese!"

Instinctively, Will prepared to discreetly turn his head at the last possible second, to craftily avoid having his face caught on camera the way Alex had taught him to do – casually, yet effectively. However, just as he was about to turn away, the thought suddenly occurred to him that without any proof of Will Traveler's existence, if Carlton Fog double-crossed Jay and Tyler (and Will couldn't be entirely certain that Fog wouldn't, if it worked out better for him that way), his roommates would have no way of proving their innocence on their own.

All of the evidence that they were being framed was in Fog's hands. And by the time they needed it, Will would be long gone, too far away to help them.

_A picture got Darian killed. Can I take that chance with Kim?_

Will had less than a half-second to make one of the most important decisions of his life. Had Tyler not revealed minutes earlier that he was about to ask Nell to be his forever; had Jay not shown, by the nervous exhilaration in his voice, that he would soon be making a similar request of Kim; had he not been confronted once more with the futures he was helping to destroy by playing along with Hometown's dangerous game, Will probably would have followed his training, ducked his head, shrugged good-naturedly when Kim bemoaned that the picture had not turned out well.

Instead, Will pretended, for the sake of any Hometown analyst who might see the picture before the jig was up and Will was beyond the reach of interrogators, to have been caught completely off-guard by Kim's appearance. His body angled slightly toward Jay, Will nonetheless made no attempt to hide his face.

The camera flashed.

_There. Now, they have proof that I was real. _

Maybe someday, Will found himself hoping as he slapped Tyler's shoulder one final time and headed out the backdoor to join Rabbit, the picture would be proof of more than Will Traveler's existence for his roommates. Maybe it would remind them that Will Traveler had been their friend, not just a spy. Maybe it would bring back good memories of a simpler time, a time before whatever was bound to happen to them all happened.

His mind busy with those and a thousand other thoughts, Will shrugged into the expensive leather jacket Tyler had given him the previous Christmas and joined Rabbit on the back steps. She looked especially tiny inside an enormous faux-fur white coat, purchased, she had related to him with a delighted grin at the irony of it all, for six bucks at a rummage sale benefiting PETA.

"Hey," she greeted him, scooting over to make room on the step and extending a Marlboro to him. "So Tyler's popping the question, huh?"

Startled, Will demanded, "You were eavesdropping?"

"No. I just had a feeling he was going to do it soon. He's been, likely, fidgety lately, or something. And he had this, I don't know, this _look _in his eyes when he asked you guys to come to the kitchen, like he had something really important to tell you. Something a lot more important than how many dissection trays we can stuff in our backpacks. So I just sort of put two and two together, I guess. Artist's intuition."

Rabbit lit Will's cigarette for him, leaning in closer than she really needed to. When Will hastily leaned back, she seemed nonplussed, casually twirling a strand of her hair – which had continued to get shorter in the past year, and was now a sleek, peroxide-blond pixie with bangs that fell across her forehead to her eyebrows – around a gloved finger.

"So I'm right?" she prompted. "He's proposing?"

"Says he is. He seemed pretty serious about it."

For once, Will didn't have to feign enjoying his cigarette – the nicotine helped to calm his rattled nerves. It had been an eventful evening thus far, what with Tyler's announcement and Kim's photo-taking and now Rabbit's continuing overtures of affection, and they hadn't even made it to the main event of the night.

"I'm happy for them," Rabbit decided.

The sadness in her eyes tugged at Will's heart. Romantic awkwardness aside, he truly liked Rabbit; he wanted to see her happy, and he despised himself on a daily basis for contributing to her unhappiness by not being able to return her feelings.

_We can't help who we fall in love with. Anyway, if she knew who I really am – what I really am – she wouldn't love me. She's not like Maya, she's not strong enough to handle my world…_

"You don't look happy." Will, realizing he was on shaky ground here (seeing how he was, after all, the reason for Rabbit's unhappiness, at least in part), spoke gently, choosing his words with care. "You seem kinda bummed by the whole thing, actually."

"I just feel sorry for Kim."

Caught off-guard, Will sputtered, "Kim? Why?"

Rabbit heaved a long-suffering sigh that seemed to say, _Men, they're clueless. _"Think about it, Will," she explained patiently, lighting a second cigarette off of the one she was finishing. "Kim and Jay have been together a lot longer than Tyler and Nell, and Kim's definitely given up a lot more in her life to stay with Jay than Nell has to be with Tyler. Don't you think it's going to sting just a little bit for Nell to be the first one with a ring on her finger?"

Although he couldn't deny the truth in Rabbit's words, Will's immediate response was to defend Jay – after all, Will understood better than anyone the difficulties of figuring out how to plan a future with the woman one loved when that future looked so uncertain.

"Jay's going to marry Kim," he tabled, somewhat testily. "He adores her, anybody can see that. He's just waiting until he knows what job he's got, where they're going to end up after graduation and everything, before he asks Kim to be his wife. It's not just about diamonds, you know," he pointed out, feeling slightly embarrassed by how preachy he sounded but unable to stop himself now that he'd started. "Getting married is a serious thing. I think it shows how much Jay really loves Kim that he wants to be sure he can actually offer her a life worth sharing before he asks her to make that kind of commitment."

"Wow. I think you could give Dr. Phil a run for his money," Rabbit teased. "I had no idea you took the sanctity of marriage so seriously."

"I just think it'd be silly for Kim to be jealous of Nell because she gets a ring first. Jay's good to Kim. He loves her. She should understand why he's waiting."

"Yeah, well, girls don't wait forever," Rabbit muttered.

Color that had nothing to do with the biting wind rose in Will's cheeks. He waited for Rabbit to press the issue; a dozen rebuttals sprang to mind, not the least of which being that a year ago, only steps from this very spot, he had told her he wanted nothing more than a friendship. In the ensuing twelve months, Will had scrupulously avoided any resumption of their former flirty, will-they-or-won't-they relationship, determinedly keeping all interaction between he and Rabbit on the "strictly platonic" end of the friends-to-lovers spectrum.

Rather than commenting on their relationship (or lack thereof), however, Rabbit continued with Jay and Kim. "I've talked to Kim about this a lot, you know. And I think what bugs her the most is that Jay keeps waiting for everything to be perfect. She wanted to get married when they moved here from California," Rabbit related, glancing over her shoulder to be sure the others were still inside, nowhere within earshot. "She told me Jay said he thought it would be too 'stressful' to be married while they were in school. So then it was wait until he graduates. And now, he's about to graduate, and whenever they talk about it, she told me it's wait until he has a job lined up.

"I'm not saying Jay doesn't want to marry Kim, or that he's wrong to want to have a future to offer her," Rabbit spoke over the top of Will's protest, silencing him. "But life is never going to be perfect, Will. There's never going to be this magical moment when everything is all worked out and decided and there aren't any more questions about the future. Life doesn't work like that. And I have to tell you, Kim's starting to wonder if Jay's ever going to decide things are perfect enough for them to get married."

Dread skated down Will's spine. He was picking up on a definite undertone here: Rabbit wouldn't break Kim's confidences lightly.

"Are you saying she's going to break things off with Jay if he doesn't propose?" he inquired bluntly.

Turning to face him, her pretty eyes wide and somber, Rabbit answered simply, "I'm saying, Kim's had a job offer from a gallery in New York for after graduation, and she's taken it."

_Shit._

"You mean she's going to New York, with or without Jay."

"That was their plan when they came here – Jay would finish law school and take a job with a firm in New York, where Kim could pursue her photography. She turned down a lot of job offers to come here with him," Rabbit reminded Will, who was torn between being angry with Kim for not keeping faith with Jay and frustrated with Jay for not holding onto such an amazing woman better than he had managed to thus far. "The compromise was that Jay would make a sacrifice for her career once he finished law school, like she made a sacrifice for his by following him to Yale. But now he's applying all over the country to jobs, and I don't blame her for deciding she can't wait around for him to realize she's worth taking some risks for."

Once again, Will sensed that they were veering into territory that had little to do with their friends' romance. "Well," he said, anxious to be inside with everyone else and out of this increasingly awkward conversation, "I guess I should say something to Jay. Not specifics about what you've told me, of course – I don't want to make trouble between you and Kim. But if she's that serious about moving on without him, I think he deserves a head's up."

"Me, too." Rabbit grinned and nudged Will with her shoulder. "Why d'you think I brought it up, huh?"

Will remembered then why he liked Rabbit so much: She was a good, loyal friend. "C'mon, let's go back in," he suggested, standing and holding out a hand to pull her to her feet. "It's freezing out here, and we're gonna have to get going soon anyway. Got some med students to fuck with."

Rabbit held onto Will's hand after she'd gotten to her feet. "Hang on," she said, a note of pleading in her voice that anchored Will to the spot despite his better judgment telling him to beat a hasty retreat indoors, back to the safety of a crowd. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you for about a month now, and if I don't get it out, I'm gonna lose my nerve again."

Heart rate trebling, Will aimed for a light tone. "What's up? No, lemme guess – you're running off with Brad Pitt."

"Gross me out! He's old and nasty." Rabbit wrinkled her nose, and Will grinned back at her, glad to have lightened the mood.

For a moment, anyway, because she became serious again almost at once.

"No, seriously, Will, this is important."

"Okay. I'm listening."

_Please don't say you love me, please don't say you love me, please don't say you love me…_

The last thing Will wanted to have to do was shoot this sweet girl down a second time. Not to mention the damage a scorned woman could do to his cover; if Rabbit turned out to be the vengeful type, well, Will Traveler certainly had skeletons in his closet he couldn't afford for a bitter would-be girlfriend to discover.

Especially not with Hometown and Carlton Fog and heaven knew who else watching his every move.

"I'm leaving Yale."

Will was so shocked by Rabbit's revelation that he stood, speechless and immobile, for a full half-minute after she spoke. Finally, he found his voice enough to stammer, "Wh-what? When? Why?"

"I'm leaving Yale," Rabbit repeated, staring at a spot slightly to the left of Will's shoes. "Tomorrow. I'm done with my exams, so…I'm getting on a plane to Paris."

"You mean, like, for vacation?"

The answer to that question was obvious from her demeanor, but Rabbit graced it with an answer anyway. "No, Will, not for vacation. I've been offered a chance to be an understudy for year with this really famous painter. He saw my work online and called the chair of my department to ask if I'd be interested.

"And I am," she concluded, suddenly lifting her eyes to Will's, her expression unfathomable. "Interested, I mean. It's a great opportunity."

"But you're a semester away from finishing your Master's of Fine Art." Will was genuinely concerned that Rabbit might be making a mistake; making a living as an artist was an uncertain business to say the least, but with a degree, he knew she would have chances to work as a teacher or in a gallery like Kim while she made a name for herself through her own creative endeavors. The last thing he wanted was for his friend to squander such an opportunity and end up just another failed, starving artist in Greenwich Village.

Rabbit shrugged. "My department chair said they'll hold my spot in the program for a year, so if I want, I can come back next spring and finish up. But I don't think I'll need to. I'm going to learn so much working with this artist, and people are going to know who I am – I'll be famous by association. Anyway," she added, glancing through the frosted windows at their friends lounging around the living room, "I can't imagine coming back here after all of you are gone. It just wouldn't be the same, you know?"

Will turned and followed Rabbit's gaze through the window. It struck him then, as it never had before, how many changes were rushing toward them all – changes that had nothing to do with Will Traveler's mission, changes that were an inevitable part of growing up, of moving on to the next phases of their lives.

Tyler was proposing to Nell. They would, from this night on, be more than boyfriend-girlfriend, more than a cute and somewhat unlikely couple; they would be planning their life together, looking for jobs in the same city, picking out china patterns and deciding where to seat the groom's billionaire relatives and the bride's wheat farmer family. And Jay and Kim, they had hard decisions ahead of them to be sure, but whatever they decided – stay together, which Will thought most likely, or go their separate ways – their paths would take them far from Yale. Far from the Castle.

Far from Will Traveler.

How silly, Will suddenly realized, to have ever thought that things would stay the same. That he could go on being Will Traveler, grad student and roommate and best friend, forever. Even if his identity were real, he would have lost Jay and Tyler sooner or later. Oh, Will didn't doubt for a second that they would always have been friends, but they couldn't always be roommates. And once that happened, once they had all married and gotten jobs and started making babies, well, they would have lost the closeness they enjoyed now.

_Maybe it's better this way, to take my memories of them from this time, when we were closer than brothers, before life got in the way…_

"I'm sorry you're leaving." Honesty didn't always come easily to Will, considering how wrapped up in deception his life usually was, yet he knew as he turned back to Rabbit that telling her the truth was the only decent thing to do. "I'll miss you, Rabbit, I will. But I'm proud of you, and if this is what you really want, then I hope it all works out."

Rabbit took a small step forward. Her toes nearly touched Will's. She tilted her heart-shaped face up to his, searching his eyes. Will did not look away.

"I guess you already know this," she said softly, her cheeks flushing a little and her voice trembling slightly with nervous embarrassment, "but there's only one reason I'd stay in New Haven. So before I left, I just needed to know: Should I stay?"

Will understood precisely what Rabbit was asking. Could he ever love her? Could he ever give over "Miss Maine," as Rabbit had called Maya, and take a chance on a feisty, exceptionally talented, New York born-and-bred artist?

Had Maya not existed, had he not been desperately and completely in love with the woman he knew was his soulmate, Will might have been tempted to say yes. Even knowing that his mission would soon take him away from New Haven, even knowing that it would be operationally prudent to send this smitten young woman packing before anyone started asking hard questions about the existence of Will Traveler, he could admit to himself that had Maya not been in the picture, he could have seen himself falling for Rabbit.

But Maya did exist. And she had filled up Will's heart so entirely that no other woman had a chance.

He saw that realization register in Rabbit's eyes as he shook his head sadly. "No, Rabbit," he told her, as gently as he could. "I don't have any reason for you to stay."

"Thought so. Still Miss Maine, huh?"

"Always."

Rabbit reached out, quite impulsively, and kissed Will's cheek; just as impulsively, he pulled her into a quick hug, releasing her before she could get the wrong idea.

"I'll say this, Will Traveler, you're nothing if not loyal."

At one time, Rabbit's observation would have made Will wince, knowing that he was betraying his friends even as they spoke. Yet his ideas about loyalty had changed over the last year. Since he was doing all he could to protect those he loved, he simply accepted her compliment with a modest grin.

"I hope I meet somebody who loves me like that one day," Rabbit mused, as they gladly reentered the warmth of the kitchen. In the living room, their friends were scrambling for coats and hats – the time had come to put their "operation" into action.

Will squeezed Rabbit's shoulder. "You will," he promised her, meaning it. "Everything's going to turn out just like it should, Rabbit. You'll see.

"Everything's going to be perfect."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20:**

**Slouching Toward Bethlehem**

_Deer Harbor_

_Five months before Drexler bombing_

"A road trip, huh?"

"That's what he said. The day after graduation, just the three of us boys out to see what there is to see of life in this great nation before we enter the grown-up world for real."

"Good luck selling that one to Kim."

Will seized a pillow from his end of the couch and tossed it playfully at Maya's head. She ducked, giggling; the missile sailed harmlessly over where she was seated at the opposite end of the sofa, her long legs stretched toward Will and her feet in his lap.

"I'm just saying," Maya insisted innocently. She wiggled her toes, a clear indication that Will should resume the foot-massage he had been giving her; with a mock-glower in her direction, Will acquiesced, pressing his thumbs into the tender arch of his girlfriend's slender foot. "I mean, from all you've said, Kim almost broke up with Jay before Christmas over his whole inability to commit to their future. If you hadn't stepped in…" Maya shook her head, letting her words trail off. "I hate to say it, Will, but I just don't see a six-week-long separation going over too well with her right now."

As usual, Maya had a valid point, Will admitted to himself, frowning. Based on Rabbit's report of the trouble brewing in his friends' relationship, Will had taken Jay aside following their highly successful prank at the med school (and Tyler's highly successful proposal to Nell at the IHOP afterwards, which Kim had reacted to with an enthusiasm Will easily saw was slightly forced) to offer some advice: Basically, stop screwing around before he ended up losing the best thing in his life.

Jay hadn't seemed too surprised to learn that Kim was having second thoughts – troubled, fearful, but not surprised. Luckily, the very next day Jay had reported back to Will that after a long, tearful conversation, in which grievances were aired and differences hashed out, he and Kim had decided to rent an apartment together in New York. It was a compromise in a way; Jay had not proposed, and Kim had not vowed to wait forever for him to do so. Nor had Jay called off his job search in other areas, although he had agreed to focus his energies on New York law firms.

Nevertheless, Will had never seen either one of his roommates look happier than when they had parted for Christmas break four weeks ago, this time all except Will New York-bound: Tyler was taking Nell to Manhattan to meet his brother (Carlton, as usual, had bowed out at the last minute to attend to an impending union strike crisis at one of Fog Industries' innumerable factories somewhere in the Midwest) before flying to Kansas for New Year's to meet her family, and Jay was once more accompanying Kim to Queens, although their first stop was to meet with a realtor in the city who was taking them to view apartments.

That same day, Will had hugged Rabbit good-bye at the International Departures gate of La Guardia airport – she had asked him to see her off, and he had readily agreed, knowing it would be the last time he ever saw the spunky little artist – and then hopped on a train bound for Deer Harbor, where he had spent a blissful month with the love of his own life. Just like the year before, Will had rediscovered his center in the quiet contentment of the home Maya had made for them; their Christmas had been simple and perfect, exactly the way they both liked it.

Knowing he couldn't outdo the previous year's gift, Will hadn't even tried. Instead, he had presented Maya with a symbol of his undying devotion: the large, hundred-year-old brass key to the research locker at Boston Hall where the evidence he had compiled against Hometown was stored.

"Hide it," he had advised her, pressing the key into her palm as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "If we ever need to fight back, that just could save our lives."

Maya had immediately taken him by the hand, led him down to the basement, and stashed the key behind a loose brick by the hot water heater Will had replaced the year before.

Besides the key, reminders of Will's mission and of their encroaching escape had been few and far between since he had arrived from New Haven, a fact for which Will knew Maya was as grateful as he was. Up until that morning, his very last in Deer Harbor as he would be boarding a train for Connecticut (and his last semester at Yale) at noon that day, they had been able to concentrate almost entirely on one another without interruption or upset. Will considered that the greatest gift of all – time alone with Maya, time to revel in being in love.

Joseph's phone call had put an end to that.

Will's cell phone had rung while Maya was clearing away the breakfast dishes. They had shared a frightened look across the kitchen; Will had one cell phone for his friends to call and another for the Partners, and he and Maya both knew the difference between the ringtones.

Heart in his mouth, Will had snatched the phone out of his bag (which was packed and waiting by the back door), suddenly convinced that his final directive was about to be delivered.

"Will," Joseph had said, his voice giving nothing away. "You got a minute?"

"Of course," Will had replied, holding out his hand to Maya, who had crossed to him and clutched his fingers like they were standing inside a hurricane and might be blown apart by the winds. "What's up?"

"I have a new directive for you," Joseph had answered. Will had turned the phone so Maya could listen along with him, placing a finger to his lips to indicate that she should remain silent, since Joseph – and Hometown – obviously would not have approved of Will so openly sharing matters of operational significance with his asset. "I need you to convince your roommates to take a road trip with you this summer."

And so, after a thirty-minute long conversation involving far fewer details than he would have preferred, Will had another layer to add to his deception, another betrayal to perform against his friends. And Maya had just pointed out that, as Will had suspected from the first time he met her, Kim Doherty was more than likely going to pose a major obstacle to completing his revamped mission.

She finally had Jay on the road to a life-long commitment now that he had agreed to move to New York. The lease they had signed started in June; no way was Kim going to be okay with Jay putting off their life together yet again to go play with the boys for six weeks…

"So how are you going to convince her?" Maya inquired, bringing Will back to the present.

Offering up a devilish grin, Will retorted, "You underestimate my charm, Miss Maya Rose. What makes you think Kim Doherty can resist me?"

Maya snorted. "Because she's one tough cookie, that's why. Maybe Nell you could sweet-talk, but Kim's my kinda girl – she's not easily fooled."

Sometimes, hearing Maya talk about his friends like she knew them (which she practically did, considering how much Will had told her about them all), Will was overcome by his on-going wish that he really could go on forever as Will Traveler and that Maya could become part of his life in New Haven. But, as Joseph's phone call had reaffirmed for him that very morning, such wishes were useless. Dwelling on them only made what he had to do – and knowing that once he did it, he would never see Jay, Tyler, Kim, Nell or anyone else from Yale ever again – more painful.

"I'll figure something out," Will assured Maya. Reluctantly, he got to his feet; the clock on the mantel read eleven-fifteen, and if they didn't leave soon, he would miss his train.

That would not go over well with the Partners, Will was sure.

"Let Tyler do the talking." Maya's suggestion came as she shrugged into her brick-red pea coat and retrieved her car keys from the kitchen counter. "He's good at talking Jay into things, you said so yourself. Tell Tyler about it first, get him on board, and then you guys can persuade Jay together."

Approaching her from behind, Will slipped his arms around Maya's waist and softly kissed the side of her neck. He felt her catch her breath and suddenly wished they hadn't wasted the morning talking about his mission.

Six weeks. Six weeks until he could touch her, smell her, taste her again. No matter how much he would miss his friends, Will found himself longing more and more for the day when he would never have to say good-bye to Maya again.

"You know," he murmured into her ear, walking his fingers up her stomach, "you sound a little bit like a spy, Miss Sanders. Who've you been talking to?"

Maya spun around and kissed Will full on the mouth, with such force and passion she stole his breath. Her fingers tangled in his hair; his palms splayed across the small of her back. The world around them dimmed: Will's awareness of everything except Maya's lips bruising his, her tongue darting across his, slipped away into a hazy fog.

When she released him, he fell back breathlessly, aching for more. And he could see at once from the vixen-like grin on her face that Maya had intended exactly that response.

"Goddamn, Maya," Will whined, running a hand through his hair and searching for his composure. "You make it hard to leave, you know that?"

"Good. That way I know you'll come back." Maya winked at him on her way to the door.

_As if anything besides death could keep me from coming back to you…_

Will and Maya discreetly held hands on the drive to the train station. They were being extra-careful these days about public displays of affection. Since Fog's revelation that even more players were involved in their little game, Will had gotten paranoid about anyone discovering how much Maya meant to him. He had a feeling Hometown was aware of the not-so-appropriate operative/asset relationship, but he didn't worry too much about that, since the Partners had no reason to use Maya against him or to believe that Will had confided in Maya anything she wasn't authorized to know. Sleeping with a woman was different from being in love with her; Will was confident that he had done a good enough job continuing to pretend that he was still Daniel Taft assuming the identity of Will Traveler, not the other way around, that Joseph, Freed, and anyone else inside Hometown would find it unlikely that Maya Sanders was anything more than a convenient warm body on long, cold nights.

Fog, however, was another story. Will liked Carlton Fog more than he had ever believed possible. Nonetheless, he also recognized that Fog was one brutal son of a bitch when it came to business, and since Will Traveler was nothing more than business to Carlton Fog, a bargaining chip like a girlfriend would be irresistible to him. Thus Will was determined to keep his feelings for Maya – and if possible, Maya's very existence – hidden from Tyler's father.

Knowing that people whose allegiances were indefinable, like Anselmo, were also in the picture had further persuaded Will that outside of Maya's house, which they carefully swept for surveillance equipment on a regular basis (and had thus far found none), he couldn't betray how deeply he cared for her or he might be putting her in danger.

More danger, that was.

So they said good-bye like veritable strangers as Will climbed out of Maya's battered SUV, the only indication that their feelings went beyond professional the soft, lingering smile they shared before Will slammed the car door shut and trotted toward the waiting train. He forced himself not to look back, not even once, just as he knew Maya forced herself to drive away without waiting to watch him board.

Soon, Will promised himself, settling into his private cabin for the long ride to New Haven. Soon there would be no more pretending, no more leaving. Soon, he could put that ring on Maya's finger and see her eyes light up the way Nell's had when Tyler proposed.

Soon. But not yet.

All the way back to Yale, Will plotted his approach to the road trip scheme. As usual, he felt vaguely annoyed that Joseph hadn't seen fit to go into the specifics of _why _Jay and Tyler would be accompanying him on a cross-country trek; having some context for the operation would have been nice, Will mused bitterly, if only as motivation to come through for the Partners. Of course, he supposed he was being unfair to Joseph in a way by expecting explanations – in the past, Daniel Taft had never needed to know anything other than the fact that an order had been delivered.

Telling himself to take it as a good sign that Joseph still assumed that to be the case, Will considered more than a dozen different scenarios for broaching the road trip subject with his roommates before opting to go with Maya's plan: Recruit Tyler, let Tyler recruit Jay.

Over the course of eighteen months, Jay and Tyler's relationship had morphed from an uneasy tolerance of one another to a true friendship. Will had seen from the beginning of his mission that his influence would be pivotal to helping his roommates overlook – and, eventually, overcome – their differences; he had for a long time served as the glue that held them all together, the affable, easy-going "little brother" who smoothed out disagreements between his strong-willed, opinionated friends, maintaining the peace and ensuring harmony in the household. But for several months, Will had noticed that Jay and Tyler got along just fine when he wasn't around. They had even started doing things together when Will couldn't (or chose not to) join them, something they had not done for their entire first year as roommates. It had helped that Kim and Nell were friends, Will understood, yet he could see that the bond between Jay and Tyler went deeper than simply liking one another's company.

They had become brothers. Brothers who occasionally squabbled; brothers who often competed with one another; brothers who lashed out at each other when their worldviews didn't mesh. But brothers, nonetheless.

They would be able to make it without Will, they would be able to hold onto one another after his betrayal was revealed, which was the outcome Will had hardly dared to hope for.

So letting Tyler convince Jay that one last shot at youthful freedom was worth putting off studying for the Bar exam and setting up house with Kim had a solid chance of working, in Will's opinion. The only problem was, Will had to convince Tyler first.

At one time, Will would have laughed at the possibility that Tyler Fog might be too grounded to throw off adult responsibilities in order to take an extended vacation with the boys. That was before Tyler put a ring on Nell's finger, however. Since then, Tyler had changed – subtly, it was true, yet Will, so well-trained in reading people, had picked up on the difference straightaway.

Tyler was thinking about the future now. He had told Will when they spoke on Christmas Eve that he had nailed his father down (albeit through an assistant, but still) on a job offer following graduation; Tyler had been putting off that conversation for months, saying only that he was "sure" his father would have a spot waiting for him in the family business once he graduated. He had also gone a lot easier on the presents this year, as if realizing that those credit card bills were eventually going to become a problem he couldn't ignore and not wanting to start off in a marriage saddled with a debt he could only repay if his father decided to reinstate his trust fund.

Further proof of Tyler's entrance into the adult world, Will reflected dryly as New Haven drew closer and closer outside the frost-covered window, had been that this year, the Christmas Eve phone call was not made from a rowdy, drunken party. Instead, Tyler had wished his roommate a happy Christmas from the balcony of an exclusive, up-scale restaurant where Tyler, Nell, his brother and several of their Fog cousins, aunts and uncles had met for an elegant meal. Nell's "debut," Tyler had called it, only half-joking.

True to form, Nell had knocked 'em dead. Will didn't know who he was more proud of at that moment: Tyler, for stepping up to the plate and acting like a man for the sake of the woman he loved, or Nell, for being the kind of tough-as-nails country girl who could impress the socks off a bunch of Fifth Avenue snobs.

By the time he climbed into a taxi at the New Haven train station, the sun had long since set and Will was so exhausted that he had decided the issue of when and how to bring Tyler in on the road trip scheme would have to wait until he'd had a good night's sleep. At least Nell wouldn't be a problem, he consoled himself as the Castle came into view, lights glowing in the downstairs windows. Nell was nothing if not fun-loving. She would think it the best idea on the planet for the three roommates to take one last turn as carefree bachelors before facing the real world of young, married (or soon to be, anyway) professionals.

_Maybe I'll bring the idea up to Tyler in front of Nell, let him see that she thinks it's a fine plan – although everything would go to shit pretty fast if I'm wrong and Nell's changed, too…_

Will tried to shut off his tired mind as he unlocked the Castle's front door, hauling his suitcase and backpack into the house behind him. "Hey," he called out, kicking the door shut. The lights in the kitchen and living room were burning, yet the house was oddly quiet. "Jay? Tyler? You guys home?"

An uneasy feeling started in the pit of Will's stomach. He stopped in the foyer, listening. His mind automatically went to the Beretta stowed in his suitcase, loaded, with a bullet already in the chamber.

The house was too quiet. Something was wrong.

_What if this has all been a ruse, my so-called "operation"? What if Hometown was always planning to kill my roommates, and they've already done so?_

_What if I'm the patsy?_

Will took a tentative step forward. Fear, nervousness, anxiety – all these he blocked out, shut down. He focused solely on taking stock of the situation. A sixth sense told him someone was in the house; that same sense told him a tragedy of some sort had befallen here. He considered the gun again but knew he couldn't possibly get to it quickly enough if an armed assassin was already inside.

He would just have to disarm his opponent.

_Ready –_

_Set –_

"Will?"

Footsteps on the porch steps had already brought Will around, poised for attack, before Jay spoke. Hastily relaxing his posture – it would definitely seem suspicious if he looked ready for a fight inside his own house, Will understood – Will offered a bright, if somewhat tense, smile to Jay, who was hauling in his own luggage and was trailed by a beaming Kim.

"Hey." Will casually placed himself between his friends and the rest of the house, preventing them from simply waltzing on in. "I don't mean to be paranoid or whatever, butall the lights are on and I can't seem to raise Tyler. You guys know where he is?"

Jay frowned, immediately concerned. Perhaps he, too, sensed something was wrong, Will reflected – after all, Jay had some military training.

"No. Was the front door locked?"

Will nodded. "Yeah. You think somebody's broken in or something?"

Kim looked frightened. She huddled behind Jay in the doorway, peering over Will's shoulder like she expected a burglar to jump from the shadows. "Should we call the cops?"

"Nah, let's check it out first." Jay jerked his chin toward Will, indicating that they should go together. "Kim, stay here by the door. You got your cell phone?"

Kim held up the phone like a shield. "Be careful," she warned them both.

Together, Will and Jay advanced into the living room. Nothing seemed out of place; the TV was on but muted, which wasn't all that strange, really, as Tyler had a habit of doing that. Will tried to surreptitiously stay between Jay and the most dangerous parts of the house – corners, open doorways – while keeping his eyes and ears peeled for the slightest hint of movement or noise.

He wondered if this was how Joseph Langdon had felt the night Darian died. Returning home to a house where something was so obviously wrong, knowing it in his bones even before he entered the front door, realizing what must have happened – what he had allowed to happen, though he might not have known the particulars of when, where and how until after the fact – without even seeing the body.

Joseph had been a coward. He had allowed his wife to go upstairs to make the gruesome discovery. Will was determined to be braver than that for Jay's sake; if something had happened to Tyler, Will wanted to be the one to find him, so Jay wouldn't have those memories to live with.

Unfortunately, Jay was a fairly stubborn person, unused to being protected. In his usual self-sufficient way, he managed to circumvent Will's cautious forward steps and enter the kitchen first.

"Shit."

Jay's quiet tone told Will at once that while the situation was not good, it wasn't life-threatening, either. Visibly relaxing, he stepped up behind his roommate and discovered Tyler slumped on the kitchen floor, snoring with his head thrown back and his mouth wide open. He was surrounded by more than a dozen empty bottles of cheap beer, a half-empty fifth of whiskey, and, to Will's disgust, a large pool of congealed vomit.

"Good Christ," Jay muttered, picking his way through the alcoholic detritus. He knelt beside Tyler, who remained unconscious, oblivious to their presence. "He didn't just get like this in a couple of hours, Will. He's been here at least a day."

Noting the moldy dishes in the sink, plates smeared with pizza sauce and cereal bowls gummy with curdled milk, Will had to agree. "I'd say two, maybe three, days he's been here," Will put in. He gingerly made his way over to Jay, wrinkling his nose against the odor of rotted food, vomit, and – horror of horrors – urine. "He's totally blacked out. How's his pulse and respiration?"

Before he started trying to guess why Tyler had ended up back in New Haven three days ahead of schedule and what could have prompted him to go on a drinking binge of epic proportions (even for Tyler, who had definitely been on some benders), Will wanted to be sure his friend wasn't in danger of dying from alcohol poisoning. Thankfully, Jay reported that Tyler's pulse was strong and his respirations were normal. So, reluctantly, Will suggested they have Kim join them – reluctantly, because he knew Tyler's reputation was about to take another nose-dive in Kim's book, when she had finally started warming up to him this fall, seeing him as something other than a malevolent influence on her boyfriend.

As expected, Kim grunted in unsympathetic derision the moment she saw Tyler. "Where the hell is Nell?" she demanded, casting about as if Tyler's fiancé might materialize from the filth strewn about the kitchen floor. "I thought they weren't flying in from Kansas until this afternoon?"

"I'd say there's trouble in paradise," Will commented wryly. Nell liked to party, no doubt, but this mess was well beyond anything she would have condoned – or that Tyler would have pulled had Nell been around.

Conversation was cut short for a few minutes as Will and Jay seized Tyler under the arms and struggled to carry their friend, who weighed a good deal despite his slender physique, to the living room couch. Will wanted to take Tyler directly upstairs to the shower, but that was going to have to wait until he was conscious enough to walk.

"Kim, you don't want to be here for this." Jay's tone was firm, brooking no argument. "When he wakes up, there's gonna be a serious 'ick' factor. Why don't you go home, unpack, and see if you can track down Nell and find out what is going on?"

Kim didn't need telling twice – she obviously had no interest in nursing her boyfriend's alcoholic roommate back to health. "Fine. You're better friends than I am," she remarked on her way to the door, already flipping open her cell phone and punching in Nell's number. "I'd leave his ass in his own puke."

Jay and Will shared a grin. "Real Florence Nightingale you've got there," Will muttered, too quietly for Kim to hear on her way out.

"Oh, Kim's the spirit of compassion – unless she thinks you're being stupid." Jay shook his head in bewilderment at Tyler, whom they had managed to deposit on the couch. He hadn't so much as stirred during the ordeal, which had left his roommates panting from exertion. "Think we can get him out of these clothes?"

"I think we should try," Will answered honestly. "It might help with the stink, at least." He shook his head, too, as troubled and perplexed as Jay.

How could things have taken a turn for the worse in Tyler's life so fast? And without his best friends knowing anything about it?

_I'll bet my left eye this has something to do with that son of a bitch Carlton. Nothing besides his father could drive Tyler to these lengths of self-destruction…_

When Will voiced his opinion while peeling Tyler's sweaty, vomit-covered shirt off his shoulders, Jay, working to unlace Tyler's beer-sticky boots, agreed. "I was kind of hoping Nell would fill up that void for him a little bit," Jay confessed sadly. "You know, make him realize he's worth something, no matter what his dad does. Or doesn't do."

"Nobody can replace your dad, though."

For a brief moment, Will and Jay's eyes met across Tyler's body, and their mutual grief for their fathers was so tangible Will felt it like a hot poker through his heart. They each looked away at the same time, a bit embarrassed, in the way of young men, by the emotional connection they had just experienced. Wordlessly, they finished stripping Tyler to his boxers.

While Jay put Tyler's clothes in to wash and started cleaning the kitchen, Will took a warm washcloth and bathed their unconscious roommate as best he could. Tyler groaned a couple of times, but he was still totally out of it when Will draped a blanket over him (turning him on his side so he wouldn't choke if he began to vomit while passed out) and went to help Jay put the kitchen back together.

Hours later, the house – including Tyler's room, which had apparently seen the beginnings of the binge given its state of drunken disarray, and the upstairs bathroom, which had apparently seen some of the binge's aftermath – was spic and span. An exhausted Will and Jay had just dropped into living room chairs when Jay's cell phone rang. It was Kim, calling to report that she had finally gotten in touch with Nell.

The news as Jay relayed it to Will was not good. It seemed that three days ago, Nell had announced to Tyler that she had taken a job with his father's company, in the P.R. department of Fog Pharmaceuticals. No one, including Tyler, had known that Nell was even interviewing with Fog Industries; as Nell explained to Kim, she had purposefully kept the application and interview process under wraps because she wasn't sure how Tyler would feel about her working for his family's business, and she didn't see any need to create a lot of upset until she knew if she even had a chance at the position. She had interviewed shortly after Thanksgiving and just after Christmas had received the call that the job was hers.

When she told Tyler, Nell had tearfully explained to Kim, he had exploded in a full-out rage, like nothing Nell had ever seen from him before. He had stomped through her family's living room accusing her of all sorts of awful things – being a tramp, a slut, a gold-digger, a liar, a whore – which basically amounted to one over-arching accusation: That Nell had only entered a relationship with him in order to advance her career.

"That's stupid, of course," Jay interrupted his own story to protest at this point. "I mean, for Christ's sake, the girl's got a _marriage proposal _from one of the richest men in the country. Most women in her position wouldn't even be looking for a job, let alone risk losing their fiancé to take one if all she wanted was the money."

Though he remained quiet on the issue, silently, Will had to agree. Part of him wished Tyler were awake so he could shake him – hard.

The other part of him was considering how this new development was going to affect his mission, and more specifically, his new directive concerning the road trip.

Jay sighed in frustration as he went on to relate that Tyler would not listen to reason or to Nell's insistence that she loved him. He had called a taxi, gone to the airport and departed for New Haven, refusing to take Nell's calls ever since.

Nell had stayed behind in Kansas for the remainder of the holidays. She had only just now stepped off the plane, Jay reported, and she was in such a state that Kim was going directly to the rambling old farmhouse Nell rented with a few other marketing grad students. She wanted Jay to go with her.

"Take Tyler's car," Will advised. Snow was piling up outside the windows once more; taxis would be hard-pressed to make the drive out to Nell's, and Will knew Jay couldn't afford to miss the first day of class, which would be starting in less than seven hours. "It'll be okay on these roads, even if this snow keeps up."

"You sure you're okay to stay here with him?" Jay looked doubtfully at the still-slumbering Tyler. "He may be kind of…difficult when he wakes up."

Will grinned. "Won't be the first time I've watched Tyler make an ass out of himself. You go on, help Kim with Nell. Tell her I'm thinking about her, and I'm sorry for all this, okay?"

And Will was sorry for how awful Tyler and Nell's situation had suddenly – and needlessly – become. Yet as Jay drove away in their friend's SUV, Will acknowledged that, selfish as it was, he couldn't have dreamed up a better avenue for convincing Tyler to agree to their road trip.

Broken-hearted, ego-bruised, Tyler would be looking to rebel in serious ways against the father he would no doubt see as responsible for yet another disappointment in his life. He would be looking to prove himself the "anti-Fog," the prodigal son, the quintessential bad boy rich kid. Heading off on a guys-only vacation when he should have been preparing to enter the adult world would certainly play into that fantasy for Tyler.

_As long as he and Nell don't get back together between now and then…_

Well, much as Will hated to do it, he supposed he would just have to see to it that Nell didn't manage to win Tyler back. Sitting in the darkness of the Castle's living room listening to Tyler's slow, steady breathing, watching the snow descend in large, wet flakes onto the silent nighttime world beyond the windows, Will steeled himself against his natural inclination to fix this situation for his friends. Instead, he determined to act like the agent he was trained to be: Nell was good for Tyler but bad for the mission; therefore, Nell had to stay gone.

The damnable part was, Will knew it wouldn't even be that difficult for him to drive a deeper wedge between Tyler and Nell. His friends all trusted him; everyone listened to Will, confided in Will, sought advice from Will. Will, the sweet, amiable, kind-hearted little brother roommate with a smile that could melt the coldest heart. Will, who only wanted what was best for everyone, who kept the peace and put everyone else's needs in front of his own.

Will, the prince of lies. Will, the silver-tongued devil.

If he said leave Nell behind, if he merely intimated that he thought Tyler was better off without her, Tyler would listen to him. Will knew how much influence he exerted over his roommates, just like he knew, from his training with Alex and Joseph, how to manipulate people into doing what he wanted without them ever realizing they were being played.

After all, how else could he have managed to insinuate himself so thoroughly into Jay and Tyler's lives without telling them a single shred of truth about who he really was?

Sometime near dawn, Tyler finally roused. Will, who had been dozing off and on in the chair, awoke as his friend sat up, cradling his head gingerly in his hands.

"Turn off the light," Tyler moaned.

Casting a sympathetic gaze over Tyler's swollen, blood-shot eyes and pale, puffy cheeks, Will answered quietly, "The lights are off, Tyler. That's just the sunrise."

"Holy shit, Will, my head feels like it's gonna explode."

"You want me to close the curtains?"

Without answering, Tyler slowly swung his legs around so that his feet were planted on the floor. Instinctively, Will rose and hurried to his friend's side, catching Tyler under the arm and steadying him as he swayed to a standing position. The movement caused his complexion to morph from chalk-white to a delicate shade of green, but somehow, he managed not to throw up again.

"Shower," Will instructed firmly, slowly maneuvering Tyler up the stairs.

"I can't," Tyler protested. "Put me back in bed."

"Sorry, my friend. You'll feel better after you're cleaned up, I promise."

Ten minutes later, a fresh-scrubbed (though still slightly green) Tyler reappeared in the kitchen, where Will had fixed him a sure-fire hang-over remedy taught to him by his father – a fried egg on a heavily-buttered biscuit and a huge cup of coffee followed by a tall glass of water with an Alka-Seltzer dissolved in it. Tyler blanched at the idea of food at first, yet he was too weak and sick to put up much of a fight.

"Wow," he commented not too long thereafter, as color gradually came back into his cheeks. "Where'd you learn that, from drunken nights in the northern wilds?"

Will grinned. "Something like that. You'd better take it easy today, though," he warned. "You drank a lot of alcohol in a short time, my friend – you're still gonna pay for that, trust me."

Tyler's expression darkened. "You heard what happened?"

"I heard Nell's side," Will replied evenly, purposefully smoothing all judgment out of his voice. "Now I'd like to hear yours."

Back on the couch, Tyler conveyed his version of events to Will. Everything tracked with Nell's, aside from Tyler's interpretation of her motives, of course.

As he listened, Will ordered himself to remember how close he was to being out, out of Hometown and out of this operation and out of the danger into which he had placed Maya. Focusing on his escape enabled him to bite back every objection to Tyler's criticisms of Nell that immediately rose to Will's lips; recalling that sooner or later, Nell and Tyler's perfect future would have been ruined (or nearly so) anyway because of the Partners' plans allowed him to suggest through an arched eyebrow here, an angry frown there, that he agreed with Tyler.

Once he finished his tale, which ended with, "I bought a case of beer and a fifth of whiskey and headed back here to the house," Tyler looked to Will with sad, pleading eyes. "I did the right thing, didn't I?" he inquired, his tone begging Will to confirm that he, in fact, had not just thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to him. "I mean, she obviously had something to hide or she would've been up-front with me about the job from the get-go, right?"

_Ready, set, go…_

Will arranged his features into an expression of pained honesty, as if what he was about to say was going to be as unpleasant for him to put into words as it would be for Tyler to hear. "I always liked Nell, you know that," he began carefully. No matter how furious he was with her, Will understood that Tyler still loved Nell deeply; he couldn't risk their friendship by being overly critical of her, even if they were currently broken up. "I never pegged her as the lying type, to be honest. But I don't think she went about this in the right way. She shouldn't have been sneaking around, not telling you she'd applied or talking it over with you to see how you'd feel about it if she went to work for your father's company. And she certainly should've told you about it once you got engaged."

Like most people, Tyler read into Will's words what he wanted to hear. He leaned back on the couch cushions with a grim smile of vindication, as if to say, _I knew it, I knew I was right about her. _"Exactly. I mean, how stupid did she think I was, Will? She got the job two days _after _I introduced her to my family as my fiancé. Did she think I wasn't going to put the pieces together and figure out what she was after?"

For the next hour, Tyler ranted about Nell's deceit, making Will's work pretty easy – he only had to nod and grunt at appropriate intervals to indicate that he was in complete agreement with his friend. Finally, with the sun fully up and the start of classes rapidly approaching, Tyler opened a window for Will to bring up the road trip by declaring heatedly, "I don't give a shit what that bitch says now, Will, I really don't. I've seen through her and there is no way I'm giving her another chance to fuck me around. I'm just gonna take this last semester here in grad school and do all the fun stuff I shoulda been doin for the last year instead of moping around after her."

"I think that's a good idea, to just enjoy yourself this term." Will was exhausted, having not really slept in over twenty-four hours, but as always when a key moment in a mission presented itself, he experienced a renewed jolt of energy. Every synapse came to life, firing with pin-point precision, as he moved in for the kill.

_This is just like introducing myself to my roommates for the first time, convincing them we were fated to be together – it's not about what I'm saying, it's about the presentation…_

"You know," Will's voice suggested that he was forming the idea as he spoke, coming up with a plan on the spur of the moment, "before she left for Paris, Rabbit said something to me that really got me to thinking. She said she couldn't imagine coming back here in a year when all of us are gone. It just wouldn't be the same. And it made me realize, in a few months you, me, Jay, we're all going our separate ways.

"I know we'll still be friends," Will hastened to still Tyler's automatic protest. "But you know how it is. We'll have jobs, and Jay'll have Kim, and we'll all live in different places, and we won't ever really be as close as we are right now. So I think we should really take advantage of the time we've got left together as roommates. Do all the stuff we've just talked about, more boys' nights out and more house parties and that kind of thing."

Tyler was nodding along eagerly. "Yeah, make the Castle back into party central, like it was our first year." A devilish gleam in his eyes reminded Will sharply of Carlton Fog when he was transacting some especially devious business deal. The correlation was not entirely positive. "Live like kings while we've still got the chance."

"And hey, maybe after graduation, we could do something really amazing, something for just the three of us."

Will had gone in so gracefully for the kill that he knew he had Tyler even before he saw his friend's ears perk up at the suggestion. "Yeah? Like what d'ya have in mind?"

Pretending to think it over for a moment, Will answered after a beat, "How about a road trip? We could drive across the country, just the three of us, see what there is to see of this great nation for a few weeks. Really spend some time together before we have to head back to reality."

Tyler's acceptance of the idea was instantaneous and absolute. His life, Will realized, had fallen apart seventy-two hours ago; Tyler was grasping for hope now, grasping for goodness and happiness to hold onto, to keep him from slipping down into the blackness that had sent him on a potentially lethal three-day drinking binge.

A sharp tongue of fear pierced Will's heart then. Would Tyler be strong enough to survive what was coming? Would he find the inner steel Will knew was there, deep down, when Will's betrayal was revealed and the nightmare began in earnest for him and Jay?

_Jay will look after him. He has to. They have to make it, both of them._

Will refused to entertain the small voice inside that warned him how unpredictable operations were: No matter how well he planned, no matter how much care he took to protect his roommates, once Will was gone, he would be leaving them in the hands of fate.

And of Carlton Fog, which was hardly any more certain.

Shaking off those depressing thoughts, Will listened avidly as Tyler launched into plotting their "road trip." Tyler had dozens of places already in mind that they needed to see – Gettysburg, the Alamo, Alcatraz – and a list of things they needed to do – ski in Colorado, hike in Yellowstone, catch a Broadway play. By the time Jay stepped through the front door, dusting snow off his coat and looking as wiped out as Will felt, Tyler had gone so far as to retrieve the U.S. atlas from Will's desk and mark out a possible route leading them from New Haven to New York and then east to Pennsylvania.

"What's up?" Jay asked, obviously surprised to find Tyler not only awake but also giddy with excitement.

"Will's had another one of his brilliant ideas," Tyler replied before Will could say a word. He proceeded to fill Jay in on the road trip plan, his eyes over-bright and his cheeks flushed, giving him a feverish, manic look that concerned Will.

Judging from the wary glances he kept shooting over Tyler's shoulder, Jay was worried about Tyler's mental stability as well.

Once Tyler finally ran out of steam, Jay offered tentatively, "I dunno, Tyler. I mean, do you think it's a little…sudden to be planning some major excursion like this?"

The laugh Tyler barked out was sharp and brittle. Will flinched at the sound, sensing a roommate fight in the works.

"A little sudden?" he echoed, the laughter in his words forced, mirthless. "Jesus, Jay, it's not like somebody died."

"No," Jay agreed. Will was relieved that rather than rising to the bait of Tyler's snide tone like he normally would have, Jay appeared to be giving their friend some latitude by attempting not to quarrel. "Although you did just have a pretty huge life-change, so I don't know if planning to run off on a six-week vacation right after graduation is a decision you really ought to be making right now."

Tyler's eyes flashed. "Right, I forgot, you're the guy with the 'plan.' Funny thing about plans, though, Jay – I'm finding out that most of the time, they don't mean shit for what really ends up happening in your life."

Clearing his throat, Will spoke up quietly. "Guys, I don't know about you, but I'm really tired and I don't think now is the best time – "

"No, now's the perfect time, Will." Jay, drawing himself up to his full height, squared off with Tyler, who looked equally ready for a knock-down, drag-out verbal assault.

_Like two dogs in the ring, _Will reflected dryly, shrinking back into his chair. He wasn't afraid of intervening; if needs be, he could have taken out both Jay and Tyler in a physical altercation. Rather, Will's reluctance to get involved stemmed from two and a half years' experience with his roommates' volatile personalities: Let them get it out of their systems, Will had learned, and peace and resolution could be found on the other side.

_They're going to have to work on this part of their relationship once I'm gone, 'cause they can't afford to be at each other's throats when somebody else is sneaking up on their backs…_

"I just came from Nell's." Jay's opening salvo struck home – Will saw Tyler's temper rise at what he no doubt considered a betrayal of their friendship. "She's a mess, Tyler, a complete mess."

"I'm sure she is," Tyler snarled in response. "Lose that precious job, has she? I made a couple of phone calls on my way back to Yale," he added, directing his comment to Will. "Just to be sure the H.R. department checked their references and all that."

"You're an asshole, you know that?" Jay shook his head at Tyler's stubbornness. "Nell loves you. She wants to work this out. If you'd just call her – "

Tyler cut Jay off with a lifted hand. "Don't tell me about how much Nell loves me, okay, Jay? I've got a little bit more experience than you do at being used by people who're after my money."

"All I'm saying is – "

"All you're saying is, you're taking her side, not mine," Tyler flared. The hurt in his voice was unmistakable, though he tried to disguise it, and it shut down Jay's anger at once. Even Will felt a stab of sympathy for Tyler, gazing at Jay like the brother who had just walked off and left him to the mercy of the schoolyard bullies.

"You know, I expected this out of Kim," Tyler went on bitterly. "I expected her to tell me how stupid I am for letting Nell go. But I gotta tell you, Jay, I thought you and Will would stand by me. Looks like I only got that half right."

Jay cut a quick glance toward Will, who decided the best way to play this turn of events was to ensure roommate solidarity. Standing, he told Jay, "I heard Tyler's side of it, Jay, and what it comes down to is, he doesn't feel like he can trust Nell after she lied to him for all those months about applying for the job and interviewing for it and then accepting it. I told him if that's his decision, I support him in it one hundred percent."

For a second, Will felt sure his plan was going to backfire, that Jay was going to accuse him of being a two-faced, back-stabbing liar – to insist that before he had left to meet Kim, Will had seemed perfectly in line with the goal of convincing Tyler that a reunion with Nell was the best thing for him. But the wounded look on Tyler's face, combined with the fact that, Will could see, Jay's excellent memory was reminding him that Will had not actually said Tyler should take Nell back, served to defuse Jay's righteous anger. Along with it seemed to evaporate his conviction that he knew what was best for his friend in this instance.

"Of course I support your decision, Tyler." Jay reached out a tentative hand and placed it on Tyler's shoulder. When Tyler didn't knock it away, Jay continued with more feeling, "I just want you to be happy. And you and Nell seemed so happy. I just…I just don't want you to make a hasty choice out of anger and end up regretting it for the rest of your life."

"I know what it feels like to be played, Jay. I've had it happen more times than you can imagine. Trust me," Tyler finished softly, the depth of his anguish shining out of his red-rimmed eyes. "Nell played me."

"Then we're done with her." Jay squeezed Tyler's shoulder and smiled bravely. "And there's nothing more to be said."

_Except one little thing…_

Will had also learned that Tyler could usually be counted on to persuade Jay in a pinch. So he stayed quiet, biting his tongue to keep from bringing up the road trip, and sure enough, Tyler did the work for him.

"Does that mean you'll come along for our little cross-country adventure this summer?" he asked hopefully, the corners of his mouth tugging up in a mischievous grin.

Jay hesitated. Will could see his friend's thoughts as clearly as if he had Madame Morphea's crystal ball in front of him – Jay knew what Kim's reaction would be, and he was understandably reluctant to risk his own relationship regardless of what was happening with Tyler's life.

"Please, Jay." The genuine need behind Tyler's words startled Will, who had not understood until that moment just how much Tyler was relying on his two best friends to see him through this catastrophe. "I know you've got the Bar exam and the new apartment with Kim and all kinds of stuff going on after graduation. I know it's selfish of me to ask. But I-I really need to do this. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't really need the time to sort myself out and, you know, something to keep me motivated this semester. Something to look forward to when this is all over."

_That's as close to a cry for help as we're ever going to get from Tyler, _Will realized. He glanced at Jay, who met his eyes briefly; from Jay's expression, Will could see that Jay, too, recognized how much courage it had taken for Tyler to speak so openly about his inability to handle the breakup on his own.

And like the man he was, Jay could not walk away from a brother in need.

"Of course I'm in," Jay announced, sparking off a few whoops and cheers from Tyler and Will – although Will's excitement had more to do with sheer relief that what he had anticipated being a near-impossible directive had been carried out with hardly a hitch than anything else.

"You guys gotta help me work on Kim," Jay added quickly. "She's not going to love this plan, I can tell you that right now."

"She'll come around." Will spoke with a confidence he didn't actually feel. He could do so because he knew Kim, no matter what her objections, would never change Jay's mind now that he had given his word for the sake of Tyler's mental and emotional well-being. "I'm telling you, guys, this is going to be the best semester and the coolest trip _ever._"

"Not if we don't get to class, it's not." Jay pointed at the clock on the living room wall, which read seven-thirty. "I've got an eight o'clock. Will, you coming?"

Will nodded. "Let me get my coat. You," he commanded Tyler, taking his friend by the elbow and steering him back to the couch, "are to sleep and drink another two bottles of water before we get home at four, got it? You're still dehydrated. You need to rest and get some food and water back in yourself before you go anywhere."

"Yes, Mom," Tyler retorted lightly, though he seemed happy enough to comply and more than a little touched by his friends' concern. "You guys have fun at school. Think about me here, napping and watching football."

Jay tossed the remote control into his friend's lap on his way to the door. "Enjoy it while it lasts, bud," he shot back. "'Cause I'm here to tell ya, you owe us big time for the mess we cleaned up in this place last night."

Tyler grimaced. "What're we talking?" he asked warily. "A round on me the next time we go out?"

Will and Jay exchanged a grin. "You know, Tyler, I see a lot of toilet scrubbing in your future," Will answered sagely, grabbing his trusty old black backpack up from its usual spot by the front door. "Lots and lots of dish-washing, too. Maybe even some laundry."

Tyler groaned. "You should've just left me to die, if this was the fate you brought me back to."

Laughing, Will and Jay hurried out into the cold, their shoulders hunched against the bitter wind, their boots crunching on the snow. As the Castle dropped away behind them, Will had to admit that no matter how rapidly they were hurtling toward the unknown future, it was good to be back with his friends.

It was good to be home.

_**Author's Note: **__The title of this chapter comes from the WB Yeats' poem, "Slouching Toward Bethlehem," which describes the poet's dream-encounter with a beast that foretells the end of the world. Excerpted below, the poem reads in part:_

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.  
Surely some revelation is at hand;  
Surely the Second Coming is at hand…

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  
The darkness drops again; but now I know  
That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

_I thought this was particularly apt for the chapter in which Will puts the final nail in his friends' coffins, so to speak. Please review and let me know what you think!_


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21:**

**Final Directive**

_Staten Island, New York_

_Two weeks before Drexler bombing_

Today, he was Daniel Taft.

Driving the rented BMW along the tree-lined, residential streets of Joseph Langdon's Staten Island neighborhood, where late-May sunshine had tempted the suburban families out of their lovely homes and onto their perfectly-manicured lawns, Will Traveler slipped into the identity of the stone-cold Hometown operative his handler had trained him to be. Sixteen hours ago he had received an urgent text message from Joseph that he was to report to the Langdon household immediately. With graduation and the start of the cross-country road trip fifteen days away, Will knew exactly what this meet was about.

He was, at last, going to receive his final directive.

Time to find out what he had spent the last two years of his life working to accomplish. Time to find out what he had to do to his roommates in order to escape the crazy, dangerous world of Hometown for good.

Face-to-face meets with Joseph had been rare over the last two years, as they always were during a mission. Undercover operatives needed to stay focused on their assumed identities; switching back and forth between reality and fantasy created confusion, opened up opportunities for agents to make mistakes that could tip off a mark that they weren't who they were pretending to be. Not to mention that, especially in a situation like Will's, finding excuses to disappear for days at a time was a tricky business – the fewer lies one had to tell, the easier it was to maintain and protect a cover. So Will knew Joseph wouldn't call for him unless it was important.

He also knew that Joseph wouldn't want to face him unless it was absolutely necessary, because ever since Darian's death, Joseph had scrupulously avoided any close contact with his operative. Deep down, Will was certain that Joseph knew the truth – Will had known that Darian was onto what her father really did, and he had lied to Joseph and to the Partners about her knowledge in order to protect her. That Will would do what Joseph should have done for his daughter had to goad the older man's guilt. Will understood that for Joseph, he was now a reminder of the worst betrayal of the other man's life.

Not that Will actually cared about Joseph's guilt. So far as he was concerned, Joseph deserved whatever suffering he endured for allowing the Partners to kill his own child. Nevertheless, acting "normally" – that was, like Daniel Taft, the loyal, capable, unquestioning operative Will was supposed to be – around Joseph was further complicated by the strain Darian's death had placed on their relationship. In addition to hiding the fact that he had already gone rogue and fully intended to go even further off the reservation before the operation was complete, Will now also had to feign a respect and liking for Joseph that had once come naturally.

_Wheels within wheels…_

Parking the car in the Langdons' driveway, Will couldn't help noting how similar this cool, bright spring day was to the summer afternoon two years ago when he had arrived at Joseph and Sela's, fresh from Paris and his Miami operation, to lobby for the New Haven assignment. Hard to believe that he was the same young man. Everything had changed for Will since then: He had come to know true love, true friendship, true loss and true loyalty. It made his head spin just to think about how different he had been that not-so-long-ago day, finding it the most normal thing in the world to ease out of one identity and into the next without ever giving a second thought to who he really was, or what he really wanted, or how he might really have been affecting other people's lives – innocent people's lives – with his work. Will hadn't just grown up in the last two years; he had become an entirely new person.

He was Will Traveler now.

Luckily for Will, and by extension for Maya, Jay and Tyler, Will was still entirely capable of _pretending _to be Daniel Taft.

In dark Seven jeans, a ribbed black sweater and the expensive leather jacket Tyler had given him the Christmas before last, with his sandy hair artfully mussed, a Rolex circling his wrist and his Coach satchel slung over his shoulder, Will looked the part of the ladder-climbing operative he was meant to be. He reminded himself that from the moment he entered the Langdon house, he would be under surveillance – Joseph's, as well as Hometown's, thanks to the cameras in Joseph's study, where their meeting would undoubtedly take place. Therefore he had to do more than look the part; for the next several hours, he had to _be _Daniel Taft again.

Forget Maya. Forget Jay and Tyler. Forget his father. Forget Will Traveler.

_Ready…_

_Set…_

_Go…_

Sela answered the door wearing a white cook's apron over jeans and a red tee-shirt. "Daniel!" she cried, folding him in a warm, motherly hug just inside the entryway. "My God, it's been forever. You look…"

She stepped back, her dark eyes shining with more than she could say, and held Will at arm's length for a second to study him. When her gaze met his, Will was convinced that somehow, someway, Sela knew that he had taken her advice – that he was getting himself out.

"You look so handsome," she concluded, her smile genuine if a little sad underneath. Will understood the complex emotions. Badly as he wanted out of this life, he hated all he had to give up in order to escape. Sela and Sam were part of what would be left behind.

"And you look beautiful, as always," Will rejoined lightly. He followed Sela down the hall to her domain, the kitchen, where pots and pans bubbled and boiled on the stove. The air was rich with aromas of chocolate and caramel, enough to make his stomach growl. "What're you working on this time?"

"Fortieth class reunion at one of the local high schools," Sela reported. She hurried to the stove, stirring a pot that was giving off a mouth-watering scent of vanilla and sugar. "Apparently, the whole class has a serious sweet tooth, because they ordered an entire menu of deserts. No salad, no appetizers, no main course. Just coffee and desert."

Will settled in at his usual spot, the island in the center of the kitchen. Despite all of the tragedy that had befallen here in the Langdon home, despite all that he now knew about what sort of man Joseph was, he had to admit that he still felt remarkably safe and comfortable in this room. Watching Sela move about in her graceful, self-assured way, listening to her prattle on a hundred miles an hour about the strange tastes of her customers, he couldn't deny that part of him still thought of the Langdons as family.

But he couldn't afford to think like that, not now. Joseph was not his father; he was the enemy. If Will slipped today, if he gave even the slightest indication that he was incapable of or unwilling to fulfill his final directive, well, Joseph would put him in the ground without hesitation.

So much for loyalty.

"Joseph should be home any minute now," Sela assured Will. She poured him a tall glass of milk and cut him a thick slice of a decadent-looking chocolate cake he had been eyeing since entering the kitchen. "He works so much these days, he's hardly ever home anymore."

Will understood. Regardless of how warm and welcoming the Langdon home was, he could feel the specter of Darian hovering over his shoulder. Everywhere he looked he saw a reminder of her: the set of wine glasses hanging above the sink, missing a piece because Darian had broken one in the dishwater on Daniel's first night in the house, slicing open her index finger deep enough to require three stitches in the ER; the empty hook by the backdoor where her coat and bag used to hang, tossed so carelessly in her hurry to retreat to her room that she often spilled pens and pencils across the hardwood floor; the white vase atop the refrigerator, a little cracked on one side, that she had made in ninth-grade art class for Sela on Mother's Day. He could only imagine how Joseph would feel, surrounded by this evidence of his daughter's life and death.

Neither Will nor Sela mentioned Darian, however, the subject being both too dangerous and too painful for them. Instead, Will asked after Sam and received a glowing rendition of the young man's accomplishments. It seemed Sam was thriving in spite of the loss his family had suffered; always smart and athletic, he was the top of his class and the captain of his football team. He had his eye on Harvard, like his father, Sela was explaining when the front door opened.

"Anybody down here?" Joseph's cheery voice boomed from the hallway.

"No," Sela sang out playfully. "No one's home, dear."

"Well, that's a shame. Here I thought I might find my beautiful wife waiting for me."

Stepping up in the doorway, Joseph looked directly at Will. His smile never faltered. If Will had ever doubted how well-trained his handler was, that greeting proved to him that Joseph was probably one of the most accomplished agents he would ever encounter: His expression, his tone, gave away nothing except pure delight to see an old friend after a long separation.

"Daniel." Joseph shook hands with Will as he rose from the bar stool. He nodded at the empty plate and cup on the marble-topped island. "I see Sela's feeding you well."

"She knows my weakness – chocolate," Will replied, matching Joseph's smooth, cheerful demeanor. "You better watch out, Joseph, or I just might steal this one from you."

"My mother always said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach." Sela paused in her work to accept a quick, loving kiss from her husband. "And whenever you two finish talking business, I promise to have something a little more substantial than cake for dinner."

Joseph looked to Will. "Can you stay?"

The silent message passed between them: _You're not to stay, that's an order._

Apparently, Joseph had no more desire than Will to continue their little charade of friendly bliss a moment longer than was necessary. Besides, once the final directive was delivered, Will wanted to be gone from the Langdons as soon as possible so he could contact both Fog and, if possible, Maya to let them know what was coming.

"I don't think so," Will replied, lacing his voice with regret. "I've got to be getting back. But I will take some of that cake for the road, if you've got left-overs," he added to Sela.

Her eyes met his behind Joseph's back. "Whatever I can do to make the trip a little easier," she chirped.

Only Will read the real message behind her innocuous comment: _Whatever I can do to speed you on your way out of this nightmare, by all means, let me do it._

Will was definitely going to miss Sela Langdon. He hoped life would be kinder to her in the future than it had been up to this point; she was a good person, and she deserved some peace.

Joseph led the way down the hall, yet when Will started to turn toward his office, Joseph shook his head. "It's such a nice day," he remarked, nodding toward the sunlight spilling through the living room windows. "Why don't we go for a walk while we discuss our business?"

A walk. Joseph wanted to take a walk – a walk away from the cameras and microphones in his office. A walk out in the open, where they could only be observed from a significant distance, if at all.

Unease settled in the pit of Will's stomach. Did Joseph have something to say to him that he didn't want Hometown to hear? And if so, what impact might that something have on Will's plans?

_Are they on to me? Did he bring me here to warn me?_

Since he had no choice but to agree, Will shoved his concerns aside and followed Joseph out into the sunshine. The day was clear and cloudless, a promise of summer hanging in the air, although the breeze ruffling the newly-budded trees made Will glad of his jacket. Joseph made small talk about Sam's football team while they slowly strolled down the sidewalk, past children playing in yards and fathers heating up backyard grills. Will feigned polite interest – he was interested in Sam normally, but today, he just wanted Joseph to get to the point.

"So, Will," Joseph said at last, his tone shifting subtly into the register Will recognized as all business. "I spoke to Director Freed yesterday, and he's instructed me to give you your final directive."

Outwardly, Will offered no reaction to this revelation. Inwardly, though, he felt his heart rate speed up and his stomach clench. Try as he might, he couldn't totally overcome the tension – and he suddenly wondered if this was why Joseph had wanted him away from the cameras, because he knew that the news he had to deliver was going to penetrate Will's defenses.

Was Joseph protecting him from Hometown's watchful eyes, helping him escape by making it easier for Will to fool the Partners into believing he was still on their side?

Like Carlton Fog, Joseph Langdon was largely a mystery to Will. At one time he had thought of Joseph as a father; at one time he had believed with his heart and soul that Joseph cared for him, that he would look out for him. Since Darian's death, Will had realized how naïve such a belief had been. Yet if his mission in New Haven had taught Will anything, it was that doing what one had to do didn't always reflect how one really felt about the players involved. It was possible, he supposed, that Joseph's paternal affection for him had not all been a ruse, not only another means of ensuring Will's loyalty to the program, and that if Joseph suspected his operative wanted out, he would try to save him in whatever small ways he could without endangering himself or his family.

Much as he would have liked to believe that, though, Will wasn't about to stake his life – or Maya's or his roommates' – on Joseph's goodwill. Thus he answered evenly, with the smug swagger characteristic of Daniel Taft, "Whatever it is, I'm ready for it."

Joseph nodded. "I'm sure you are, Will. Your work in this matter has been above reproach. The Partners are beyond impressed. In fact," he went on, smiling slyly at his operative, "Director Freed would like for you to come to Washington once things settle down, for a private meeting to discuss your future with the program."

Strange, how that offer could now serve to make Will somewhat sick to his stomach, whereas two years ago, Daniel Taft would have been over the moon at such news. Aware of the role he was still playing, Will affected a close approximation of the joy he was expected to feel by recalling how deliriously happy he had been after first making love to Maya.

"Seriously?" His ear-to-ear grin earned an answering smile from Joseph, who nodded. "That's…Wow. I'm just-I'm just so…Thank you, Joseph, for this opportunity."

Joseph raised a hand to wave off the gratitude. "Don't thank me, Will. You're the one who has made this all possible."

_Not exactly, you two-faced, back-stabbing son of a bitch – I seem to remember a little memo from you to Director Freed about recruiting me after you set my father up to be killed…_

"I couldn't have gotten this far without you, Joseph." Will hoped the double entendre in his words would not be wholly lost on Joseph, though the other man had no way of knowing that Will was aware of the circumstances surrounding his recruitment into Hometown. "You believed in me. When I asked for this mission, I know you had your doubts, but you gave me the chance. I'm just glad I've been able to make you proud."

_And when this is all over, I hope the Partners decide you're responsible for my defection and put your head on a pike as a warning to other handlers – or better yet, I hope they slit your wrists and dump you in a tub of hot water to bleed out, like Darian…_

Holding so much rage inside without allowing one iota of it to show was more than difficult for Will, but he managed. Joseph continued to grin, blithely unaware of the murderous thoughts rampaging through his operative's mind. Will knew, however, that had he been in Joseph's study for this conversation, with cameras rolling that could measure his heartbeat and blood pressure, the jig would have been up at once.

Intentionally or not, Joseph had saved Will's life by opting to have this conversation outside.

What Joseph didn't know, what Will was taking an even greater risk than was strictly necessary by doing, was that the cameras and microphones in Joseph's study were not the only recording devices on the quiet suburban street that day. In the pocket of Will's coat rested his cell phone, programmed to capture everything he and Joseph were saying on tape.

This would be it: The ultimate, definitive proof that Jay and Tyler were innocent. Joseph was about to reveal the true extent of the Partners' scheme against Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog. No matter how much danger it put Will in to record this conversation, he simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to walk away with that kind of ammunition to use against Hometown if he – or his roommates – ever needed it.

"The target," Joseph began, nodding amiably at two women in tracksuits jogging past, "is the Drexler Museum of Art in New York City. You're familiar with the museum?"

Will shrugged. He had never been there personally, but the place was a landmark. "I've heard of it," he answered.

Something tickled in the back of Will's brain then. The Drexler…Hadn't he just heard about that on the news? A report that had involved President Shears?

An extensive loan of the president's personal art collection, that was it. The Drexler Museum was planning an exhibition of paintings related to the founding of the country, all from the Shears Collection, that very summer.

Coincidence? Will thought not. For two years, he had been gathering and doctoring evidence to establish that Jay and Tyler both had reasons to hate President Shears – Jay, for what the military had done to his father with his court martial, and Tyler, for what the SEC had nearly done to his father with their investigation of fraud and corruption. Shears hadn't been directly involved with either incident, of course, but it was his policies, both with the military and with the SEC, that had sparked the investigation into Tom Burchell and Carlton Fog.

Will said nothing about his recollection of the news report, and Joseph, true to form, did not mention the reasoning behind the orders Will was being given. "In two weeks, you and Mr. Burchell and Mr. Fog will depart from New Haven for New York to begin your cross-country road trip," Joseph went on, his voice crisp, emotionless. They could have been discussing stocks instead of two innocent lives. "When you reach New York, your orders are to detonate an explosive device in the Drexler Museum."

The plan made perfect sense to Will as soon as Joseph said it. He had ensured that Jay and Tyler could not deny having handled explosive devices on a polygraph; he had manipulated his chemical engineering assignments to make it appear that Jay spent a significant amount of time learning how to make a bomb; he had used his video blog to depict them both as president-hating terrorists; he had tricked his roommates into seeming to have the kind of tactical training necessary to pull off bombing a public building.

_So the story will go: Two intelligent but disillusioned young men, out of a twisted sense of loyalty to their families, decide to strike back at the government, to take revenge for what their fathers suffered, by blowing up the Shears Collection while it's on loan to the Drexler – and in the process, taking out a landmark of high-class New York society and a few hundred innocent people…_

Will concentrated on the specifics of the final directive as Joseph laid them out, detailing what type of explosive device he should create, how he should get it into the museum, and what method would be preferable for guaranteeing that Jay and Tyler were in the building but unaware of the bomb prior to the detonation. Even as he listened, Will, being an excellent operative, could see it all coming together in his mind's eye.

The morning after graduation, he, Tyler and Jay would say goodbye to the Castle and head for New York City in Tyler's SUV. The road trip was by this time completely planned: With his job at Fog Industries secured, Tyler was once again insisting on footing the bill for everything, so Will had been left in charge of planning and Jay, who had wanted to assist with the planning but who was trying to appear as unconnected to the trip as possible given how volatile Kim's reaction to the idea had been, had been left with the unenviable task of keeping them out of trouble once they actually hit the road. The route Will had laid out would eventually bring them to San Francisco in six weeks' time, from where they would take a much faster and more direct line back to New York, back to the adult responsibilities that awaited them.

Only now, Will understood that the first stop on their journey would be the last. He had intended for the three of them to spend that first night in the luxurious Worcester Park Hotel, a sort of last taste of the good life before eight weeks of chain motels and campgrounds. They would still have that one fabulous night, Will decided, because it would seem natural that two young men would want to "live it up" prior to risking their lives for their cause. The 9-11 hijackers had partied in strip clubs and bars on September 10. Tyler Fog and Jay Burchell would do something very similar, and then in the morning, they would go to the Drexler Museum, plant a bomb, and become terrorists.

What would actually happen, of course, would be that Will would lure his friends into the museum and, once inside, would split up from them so he could set up the bomb. As Will cast around for a means of pulling this plot off, he immediately thought of the med school pranks the trio of roommates had pulled: While Jay and Tyler wouldn't need to handle the explosives this time around – no way would he ever convince Jay to bring anything dangerous inside a public building, Will knew – they would need to do something memorable that would place them at the scene in the minds of surviving witnesses. Two men skating through the elegant art museum would definitely be enough to get their faces on security cameras and in the memories of survivors. Will would stay behind to film them for his "blog," waiting until his roommates were off and running to plant the bomb, which, in a place with security as lax as an art museum's, he could easily sneak inside in Jericho Sanders' old black backpack.

And then, after double-checking that Jay and Tyler had made it outside, Will would detonate the device.

_Killing dozens of people and throwing a barely-recovered city into another state of horror of panic, just like after 9-11 – but if I don't do it, they'll just find somebody else who will…_

Trying not to think about the damage he would be doing to innocent lives and to the country itself, Will focused instead on mentally walking through the outcome of the bombing for his friends. Jay and Tyler would initially assume their friend had died in the blast. Until they were arrested, of course, at which point they would realize that, since no record of Will Traveler existed, he had in all likelihood been responsible for their framing.

And once Carlton Fog got involved, that suspicion would be confirmed. Will didn't delude himself that the help he would offer his friends through Tyler's father would mean much to them at that point – they would already hate him, quite possibly for the rest of their lives, for his betrayal.

But by then, Will and Maya would be long gone, so it wouldn't matter.

Much.

Yet not all of the puzzle pieces were fitting together for Will. For as he listened to Joseph, Will realized that, unlike previous missions that had required him to frame innocent people, Joseph was not saying much about Jay and Tyler. Instead, he seemed more concerned with instructing Will in exactly where the bomb should be placed inside the Drexler (the wing with the Shears Collection exhibit) and exactly when it should be detonated (between nine-thirty and nine-forty-five in the morning).

_It's like he's more interested in blowing up the museum than framing Jay and Tyler. What's in the Drexler that Hometown would want destroyed?_

Before Will could answer that question, Joseph suddenly asked, "Are you clear on the directive, Will? You understand what we want from you?"

"Yes, sir." Will responded with automatic, highly-ingrained military courtesy. "You can tell the Partners not to worry. I'll see to it that the mission is carried out."

"Excellent." Turning, Joseph began to stroll back in the direction of his house. "I knew I could count on you."

_Count on this, asshole – you're gonna regret the day you ever met me very, very soon._

"You know," Joseph continued, quite conversationally, "there is one aspect of this we haven't discussed, and that's your roommates."

Will felt his heart rate speed up again and once more was thankful for the absence of cameras. Silently, he waited for Joseph to go on.

"They will be framed for the bombing – "

This was not news to Will, so he said nothing. Better to let Joseph do the talking now, he decided, until he had heard exactly what the final directive was – because Will had a sudden sinking feeling that he knew what came next.

" – and they are expected to die in the blast."

Briefly, Will fantasized about jerking the Beretta from its concealed spot on his left hip and emptying the clip into Joseph's placidly-smiling face. To hear Jay and Tyler's lives discussed with such casual brutality, to hear their deaths plotted with absolutely no feeling for the men they were and the promise their futures held…It took all of Will's considerable self-control to hold his fury in check.

"Is that going to be a problem for you?"

Joseph's tone was gentle. Nonetheless, behind it Will heard the warning: Answer yes, and he was dead; answer no unconvincingly, and he was dead.

_Daniel Taft doesn't give a shit about Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog. Daniel Taft lives the mission. Daniel Taft believes in what he does. Daniel Taft wants that private meeting with Director Freed more than anything else in this world._

_Be Daniel Taft. For Maya. For Jay. For Tyler. For Kim. For Nell. Be Daniel, not Will, just for one second._

_Ready –_

_Set –_

_Go._

"No. Not at all."

Even though Will Traveler could never have said those words and meant them, Daniel Taft could. And for the span of one heartbeat, for the space of four little words, the young man became Daniel Taft again.

It worked.

Joseph's face visibly relaxed, the tension easing out of him as he seemed to see what he had been searching for since greeting Will in the kitchen: That Daniel Taft, not Will Traveler, was still in charge of this operation.

"Good," Joseph rejoined, "because there's no room for error, Will." He leaned in closer, like a boyhood friend sharing a secret. "The Drexler is just the first step in a much larger plan."

Will stiffened slightly, thinking of the hints Sela and Carlton Fog had both given him that Hometown and the Partners were a much larger enterprise than he had ever dared believe. Was Joseph telling him that, too? Conveying in not so many words what a huge conspiracy Will had found himself in?

And was he doing so because he trusted Daniel Taft with that information, or because he wanted to remind Will Traveler that there was no way out?

They were nearing the Langdon house again. Joseph suddenly appeared eager to end the conversation. "Your country appreciates it," he told Will, as he had after every dastardly deed Daniel Taft had committed in the name of patriotism. Stopping at the edge of his driveway, he extended his hand for Will to shake. "You'll never know how much, Will. We're all in your debt."

"Don't mention it." Will's smile felt forced, unnatural, but he hoped it would be enough to fool Joseph given the fine performance he had just managed. "I'd best be on my way, though. Sounds like I've got a lot to prepare before graduation."

"You headed back to New Haven?" Joseph asked, moving onto the porch steps as Will walked around to the driver's side of the rental car.

Will shook his head. He had two thoughts in his mind: One, contact Carlton, and two, see Maya.

"No, I'm going to Deer Harbor," he answered honestly. From now until the end of the operation, Will knew he wouldn't be able to sneak away; he would be watched, day and night, by Hometown agents to ensure that he didn't get cold feet and try to run. If he wanted to see Maya, he had to tell Joseph where he was going.

And he needed to see Maya. He couldn't follow through with this horrible plot unless he did.

"What for?" Joseph prompted, looking bewildered.

"Most of the evidence I've got against Burchell and Fog is there." Will silently patted himself on the back for having the foresight to store those materials in Deer Harbor, which gave him a perfect excuse to head for Maya's now. "I'm going to collect it and take it back to New Haven. Drop it off in Tyler's ex-girlfriend's basement for storage. After the bombing, I've no doubt she'll contact the authorities to come get their stuff, and then the case against them'll be sealed."

Joseph smiled his approval. "Clever thinking, Will. I like it. Safe trip, all right?"

Driving away from his handler's house for what would be the last time (so long as everything went according to plan in two weeks), Will managed to remain perfectly calm, his hands steady on the wheel, while he headed back toward the city, from where he would take the Interstate north to Maine. At the river, he pulled over in a gravel lot dotted with other vehicles – it was a gorgeous spring day, and many families had chosen to walk or picnic by the water. He took the cell phone from his pocket, the one that had recorded his conversation with Joseph, and pushed "play."

_"There is one aspect of this we haven't discussed, and that's your roommates. They will be framed for the bombing, and they are expected to die in the blast."_

Ever so slightly, Will's fingers began to tremble.

_"Is that gonna be a problem for you?"_

A pause. A breath. And then the ultimate betrayal.

_"No. Not at all."_

Closing his eyes, feeling a wave of panic rise up inside of him as Joseph's last words filled the quiet cab of the luxury car – _"There's no room for error, Will. The Drexler is just the first step in a much larger plan" _– Will pictured a far-off day in the future when, in the back of a limousine in some dark New York alley, he might somehow arrange to meet with his by-then rich, successful, happy and long-exonerated roommates. He could see Tyler's face, earnest and desiring to believe that Will had never meant to hurt them; he could see Jay, half-turned to the window, stoic and refusing to entertain the possibility that Will was a good man. Jay and Will had always been the closest; they shared a bond Tyler couldn't understand, the bond of sons who had loved and lost amazing fathers. Jay would take Will's deception to heart much more so than Tyler, Will feared.

And what would he say to them? How would he explain to them why he had been able to coolly, cruelly agree to murdering them?

_I said it because I love you. I said it because I can't protect you unless they believe I'm a monster. I had to betray you, both of you, to save your lives. You heard the tape, Jay – this was bigger than me, more than I could stop on my own. I'm just a soldier. I couldn't save you from all of it, but I tried – I really tried – to save your lives._

Maya's face swam into view behind Will's eyes. Her sweet, tender smile brought an instant serenity to him.

_You did the best you could, Will, _she whispered in his heart. _You're only one man. Do what you can do: Save their lives, and trust that the rest will work out. _

_Who knows? One day, they might even forgive you._

Opening his eyes, Will shook his head ever so slightly. No, he doubted his friends would ever forgive him. He would have to live with their hatred for the rest of his life; he would have to accept that in their minds, he would be a terrorist, a criminal, a killer. Because deep down, Will knew that even if he ever had the chance to explain himself to Jay and Tyler, he wouldn't ask for their forgiveness – he would be too afraid that it would be withheld. It would be better, he decided, if he never saw them again, if they went on despising him forever, but if he did somehow fall into their lives at some distant, grainy point in the future, it would be better if he let them go on believing that he was one of the bad guys.

He could handle them believing that because of what he had done, Will thought. He couldn't handle them believing that because of who he was.

Now was not the time for lengthy ruminations on the nature of friendship and loyalty, however – Will had a lot of work to do in a very short amount of time if he wanted his roommates to have the chance to hate him. Slipping his other cell phone from his satchel, Will punched in the number of Carlton Fog's secure line and steeled himself for Fog's reaction to this latest development.

"Hello, Will," Fog answered smoothly on the third ring. "You have news?"

Will regularly updated Fog on the progress of his mission, especially anything that pertained to Tyler's well-being, so Fog had known that Will would be meeting Joseph that day. Briefly, he relayed the details of his final directive, saving for the end the most crushing news: "They want Jay and Tyler to die in the blast."

On the other end of the line, Will heard the older man draw in a sharp breath. "I thought that might be the case," Fog murmured, half to himself.

"I can get them out," Will assured Tyler's father. "But all I can do is ensure that they survive the bombing. Then I have to walk away."

"Of course." Fog sounded as firmly committed to that chain of events as Will, whether because he wanted to be sure the man who could prove his own betrayal was immediately out of the picture after the bombing or because he wanted to be sure Will survived, Will had no way of knowing and opted not to speculate on. "You see to it that they don't die in that museum, and I'll have my people in place to protect them afterwards. I have the name of the hotel where you'll be staying in New York. I'll be sure to have someone placed there, and someone outside the museum, to watch out for them and help them get to me."

Will nodded. He felt calm once more, in control of the situation. He was ready to be on the road, ready to see Maya, but he had one more question for Fog.

"Any word on this Anselmo guy and what his deal is in all of this?"

"Some," Fog hedged. "It really doesn't pertain to anything you'll be doing, though, Will. I'll tell you what I know if you're interested, but I think it might be more prudent for you to just focus on getting through the next two weeks right now."

Will bristled at the idea that he might not be equipped to process whatever Fog had learned. Nevertheless, remembering how emotionally shaken he had been minutes earlier, Will couldn't deny that Fog probably had a point – if Anselmo wasn't going to be a major player in the Drexler plot, if he wasn't going to interfere with Will's plans in anyway, then whoever he was and whatever he wanted was a set of worries Will didn't need to contend with right now.

"As long as he isn't going to be a problem for me, then I don't care," Will decided. He could hear Fog's approving smile on the other end of the line, and while it rankled Will a bit, it also gave him a perverse sense of satisfaction to have pleased Fog.

_No wonder he manipulates Tyler so well – Tyler doesn't have the same psychological training that I do, and this guy still manages to push my buttons._

"I've got to get going," Will continued, hoping Fog couldn't guess his thoughts, as the older man seemed to have an uncanny knack for doing exactly that. "I don't expect I'll need to contact you anymore between now and the bombing, unless something changes."

"I'll transfer the remainder of your fee this afternoon, then."

Fog hesitated. Will did not immediately hang up, either, though he wasn't sure what was left to say.

Silence hung between them for a moment. Finally, Fog said, rather gruffly, "Look after yourself, Will."

"You know me." Will grinned against the receiver, staring across the river at the city where he knew, high atop his penthouse suite, Fog was probably standing at his own window gazing out toward him. "I'll be fine. And I'll take care of Tyler, I promise."

"I know you will, son, I know you will." Fog's tone carried a finality tinged with sadness, suggesting that he, too, understood the odds Will was facing, how easily everything about their carefully-laid plans could go up in smoke. "I would say it's been a pleasure, but…"

Will laughed. "Yeah, but it hasn't been."

"Not under these circumstances, no," Fog admitted. "But if you need anything once you're on the run – "

The last person Will could imagine going to for help would be Carlton Fog, the man responsible for his father's death. Cutting Fog's paternal speech short, he said coldly, "Like I said, I'll be fine. I'm pretty capable of taking care of myself."

"Yes." Fog sighed, sounding resigned to Will's refusal to accept his overtures of friendship. "Then I guess there's nothing left to say, Will, except good luck."

_**Author's Note: **__I apologize for the episode rehash here. The next two chapters will have a very short couple of scenes from the show's flashbacks and from the first episode as well, because as the story catches up to the timeline of the show, I found it necessary to incorporate some of what we saw happen in order to complete Will and Maya's journey. But I promise to keep the rehash to a minimum._

_Only two chapters left and then the epilogue, so please let me know what you think about where Will and Maya are and how I've gotten them here!_


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22:**

**Memory**

_Deer Harbor_

_Two weeks before Drexler bombing_

Maya had just finished her mid-week sweep of the house for surveillance equipment when the back door suddenly opened. Leaping away from the living room hearth, the last place she always checked for recording devices (using a long-handled mirror presented to her by Will for just such a purpose), Maya hurried around the corner of the stairs into the kitchen, half-expecting to find armed men bursting through her back door.

To her relief, it was only Will, clad in a black ribbed sweater and looking distracted, closing the door behind him.

"Will?" Maya was pleasantly surprised by how calm she sounded, given that her heart had nearly stumbled to a standstill moments before: Normally, Will showing up unannounced would have been enough to send her into a tailspin of fear and anxiety.

_I've been expecting this, _she realized, as Will moved past her with a hasty, "Sorry," for dropping in without warning. _Whatever is going to happen, it has to happen soon – maybe it's happening now…_

"Are you okay?" Maya asked the most important question first, standing aside as Will unlocked the basement door. He gave a brusque, wordless nod. Trying not to rattle him more than he already seemed to be, she pressed gently, "We don't have a meet scheduled."

"I just got my final directive." Will's words were clipped, but not, Maya saw at once, from anger.

From fear.

She shivered. Anything that could make Will afraid, she had long since learned, was more than enough to cause her outright terror. Some of her superb self-control began to slip, worry creeping into her voice as she prompted, "And?"

One hand on the open basement door, Will replied grimly, "It's time to get out."

He started down the steps. Maya followed him, her heart pounding, her mind racing. Was he saying that they were leaving then, right that second? Was he not going to complete the mission after all?

_Talk to me, _Maya wanted to beg. She wanted to seize Will by the shoulders and force him to look at her; she wanted answers, because the world seemed to be turning upside down for them yet again. _Will, please, telling me what's happening – I'm scared…_

But in spite of her own anguish, Maya could see that Will was in no fit state to be her comforter at the moment. Whatever his orders were, they had to be horrible – his employers had to have asked him to do something unthinkable, for she couldn't recall ever seeing Will so agitated over his mission.

So she did her best to be strong for him, to not let how frightened she was show through.

"What's the order? What is going on, Will?" Maya demanded, following Will down the stairs. At the bottom, he stopped and began to survey the room. Impatiently, Maya assured him, "The room's secure." She had swept it minutes earlier, in fact. "What is going on?"

Will slowly turned to face her, his pretty blue-green eyes darkening to a cobalt-blue, his words suffused with hollow dread. "The job's in two weeks," he reported dully. "The boat'll be ready by then. When I come back here, we take off, and we're out."

_The job's in two weeks. _Maya wanted details, desperately, yet she sensed that this was one of those times when Will would act much more like Daniel Taft than Will Traveler – when he would remind her that some questions she was better off not asking.

_He'll tell me when he's ready. When he's able. _

From what he had said, though, Maya was able to infer a few things. One, they weren't leaving right that second; Will would still be returning to New Haven to complete his operation, it seemed. If that was the case, then his visit to Deer Harbor was more than likely serving a dual purpose of preparing for that final directive and finishing stocking the boat so they could leave. And that meant, finally, that she was once again going to be left behind to anxiously await word of whether or not Will was safe, of whether or not the plan they had so carefully devised had worked.

Maya wondered if Will, man of action that he was, would ever be able to fully appreciate how difficult it was to be the one left behind.

Her loaded silence seemed to move Will more than anything Maya could have asked him, for he abruptly came forward and reached for her hands, clasping her fingers tightly in his. His voice was suddenly gentle, almost apologetic, as if he realized that he was upsetting her by his sudden, inexplicable arrival.

"No looking back, okay?" Will's smile was sweet, tender, yet it did nothing to soften the stark reality of his words.

They were really leaving. Will was really going to throw his mission, betray his employers, and they were really going to run for their lives from people who might never stop hunting them.

_We're not ready for this. I'm not ready for this…_

As if he had read her mind, Will went on firmly, stepping closer, "Maya, we're ready for this."

She summoned her bravest smile, which she knew came across as weak and shaky. "If you say so."

Will's eyes darkened even more, flecks of emerald appearing around the iris. "You have to trust me." It was half-command, half-plea.

Maya swallowed hard around her fear. Now that the moment of truth was upon them, she was determined to be as courageous as Will; she fed on his strength, on the resolve she saw standing like a rock-wall behind his steady gaze. Will, the spy. Will, the soldier. Will, the one she loved.

Trust him? At one time, Maya had found that nearly impossible. Not anymore: She realized that she did trust Will, utterly and completely, with her very life.

No, she wasn't afraid of Will failing her. She was afraid, however, of Will not being able to walk away from his roommates – not being able to leave them to the hands of fate, despite the safeguards he had put in place, with the help of Tyler's father, to protect them.

What she feared wasn't dying herself. What Maya feared was losing Will.

Only one question remained for Maya now. She forced herself to ask it in the calmest, most even tone she could manage, while staring fiercely into Will's eyes for the truth.

"What if you don't come back?"

Will's expression registered no fear. His answer, like her question, was simple and bald.

"Then you take the boat, and you go on your own."

He walked away from her then. Maya turned her head, blinking back tears she knew Will wasn't in any shape to see; he was struggling, struggling to keep it all together, to stay on the path he had charted for them. She would never forgive herself if she became a burden to him now, when what he obviously needed was a helper.

His asset, indeed.

_Okay, Maya, time to get your head in the game. Just one last round left to survive, and then you're home free._

_Ready –_

_Set –_

_Go._

Instant calm descended upon her, enabling Maya to turn to Will, who was studying the locked boxes beneath her staircase, and inquire matter-of-factly, "What do we need to do?"

Will glanced over his shoulder at her, apparently perplexed by her suddenly all-business demeanor. Maya arched an eyebrow at him, as if to say, _What, you think I can't handle this? I know how this works as well as you do, Mr. Super-Spy._

His grin told her how much he appreciated and admired her spirit. "We need to sort through this stuff, find the most damning evidence against Jay and Tyler, and load it in my car," he informed her, his tone giving away none of what Maya understood to be his real feelings about what he was being ordered to do. Emotions could wait; for now, they had work to do. "I'll drive it back to New Haven tomorrow morning, put it in Nell's basement where the FBI'll find it after we're gone."

"Okay."

"You don't have to help me do this." Will paused in pulling one of the heavy boxes off the shelf, his head lowered in shame. "You don't have to be part of this, Maya. I can do it myself."

"Will." Maya took her beloved's face between her hands and drew his mouth down to hers in a soft, lingering kiss. Against his lips, she whispered, "Whatever it is, baby, whatever they've asked you to do, I know you're only doing it because you don't have any choice, and I know you're going to do whatever you can to protect Jay and Tyler when this is all over. I believe in you, Will. I know you're a good man."

Will's spine was rigid, his voice strained, his fists clenched at his sides. "They want me to kill them, Maya."

A cold thrill of dread skated down into Maya's belly, but she refused to react with anything other than stoic calm. "You said a few months ago that might be what they wanted," she reminded him gently.

"I know, but…"

Maya's heart broke for Will, for the tangled web he was so inextricably caught up in. "But it was still hard to hear it said out loud?" she supplied softly, to which Will nodded.

"Will, sweetheart, listen to me." Maya gripped Will's shoulders firmly and refused to take her eyes off of his until he met her gaze. "You've done everything you can to look out for them. And you know Jay and Tyler aren't completely helpless, either – they're smarter and tougher than you gave them credit for at first, right?"

Reluctantly, Will nodded. Maya offered up her bravest smile. "So you see? It's not that dire. Between what you've done for them and what Tyler's father is going to do for them and what they can do themselves, they're going to be okay."

Resting his forehead against hers, Will blew out a shaky breath, some of the tension easing out of his muscles. "Do you really believe that?"

"That Jay and Tyler will be okay? Yes."

_I have to believe that, and so do you…_

"No. I mean, the other thing. That-that I'm a good man."

Maya leaned back enough for Will to see directly into her eyes. "Yes," she answered from her heart, without hesitation, without reservation. "You're the one that I love, Will. No matter what you've done or what you have to do, I know who you really are. And you are good."

For a moment, the ghost of Jericho hung between them. Maya almost thought Will was going to tell her the truth about that night, confess all of his sins, see if she still held to her belief in his goodness then. Maya held her breath, waiting, steeling herself to forgive.

But the moment passed. The time for truth would come, she told herself, as Will turned back to his work, instructing her on which boxes would need to be sorted through. Soon, they would have all the time in the world for opening up to one another – once they managed to escape.

They worked through the day and into the evening, spreading out evidence like Will's chemical engineering assignments that his employers' graphologists had recopied into Jay's hand and the CDs containing the doctored "video blog" across Maya's living room floor. She helped Will select and catalog what he wanted to take along; then she placed them all into cardboard boxes for transport back to New Haven.

"Nell won't mind you storing this stuff in her basement?" Maya asked toward mid-evening. She was seated cross-legged with her back against the couch, Will beside her with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Her shoulders and neck ached from sitting on the floor all day hunched over piles of papers and CDs, and she was sincerely hoping for one of Will's famous massages before bed.

_I wouldn't mind something more than a massage, either, _Maya thought, glancing sideways at Will's messy hair and somber eyes. She knew it probably made her an awful person to be thinking of making love at a time like this, when she was assisting in the destruction of two innocent lives, but she couldn't help herself – time with Will was preciously scarce, and whenever Maya was around him, she wanted to be in his arms.

_Thank God the nightmare is almost over. We'll be together forever soon…_

"Not since it's for me," Will answered confidently. He tossed a last scrap of paper into a cardboard box before stretching, a clear indicator that their work was finally done. "She probably wouldn't do it for Tyler, given how pissed she still is at him, but she'll help me out."

"Her and Kim still close?" Maya couldn't help feeling a connection to these two women she had never met, two women who would soon be facing the horror Maya had lived with everyday for nearly two years – the fear that the men they loved were in mortal peril, and the questions of whether or not Jay and Tyler were the people they had seemed to be.

Maya sincerely hoped Kim and Nell would find their own happy endings, the way she and Will soon would. Although she doubted she would ever know them, she felt as if their lives were connected somehow, as if their happiness was all bound up together. As if none of them would ever find peace and safety if not all of them could.

"Yeah. That definitely hasn't helped Tyler and Kim's relationship," Will reported darkly. "I tell ya, it's been a real struggle to keep those two away from each other's throats this past month. The closer we get to this trip, the worse it gets."

"It'll be over soon." Maya scooted over and rested her head on Will's shoulder, loving how he immediately pushed everything else aside to draw her closer, draping one arm around her in a sweetly-protective gesture. "In two weeks, this is all going to be behind us. Jay and Tyler will be safe with Tyler's father, Kim will be with Jay, and you and I will be on a boat to paradise. And who knows?" she concluded, softly kissing the super-sensitive spot just below Will's ear. "Maybe Nell and Tyler will even get back together after all this. They say some of the best relationships are forged out of intense circumstances."

"Is that what they say?" Will's voice had taken on a husky note. He tipped his head back against the couch as Maya's lips moved across his neck and jaw; he hadn't shaved that day, Maya noted, so his skin was covered with a rough stubble that made him look ruggedly handsome.

A far cry from the suave pretty-boy who had first walked into her bookstore, no doubt about that. Will Traveler was light years beyond the man Daniel Taft had been. As she moved to straddle Will's lap, Maya was struck again by the heart-warming realization that she had helped Will discover who he really was, to pull the pieces of himself that had been so torn and bruised when she first met him together into a coherent whole – into a strong, brave, loyal, loving, intelligent young man.

A good man. A man she was proud to love. A man she was willing to give up everything in her life for.

"Can you stay the night?" Maya asked hopefully, easing Will's sweater off over his shoulders.

He shivered as she trailed her fingertips ever-so-lightly down his bare chest. "I might be persuaded," he replied lightly, sitting forward to capture her mouth in a long, slow kiss. His fingers wound in her hair, his tongue deftly parting her lips to deepen the kiss. Maya felt the heat rise in her skin, the desire that smoldered between her and Will igniting as it always did the moment their bodies connected.

Gently, lovingly, they undressed one another on the living room floor. Maya never tired of making love to Will; though they were by now quite familiar with each other's bodies, every time felt new, brought some never-before-experienced pleasure to her. More than anything she loved how beautiful Will made her feel – he would gaze down at her with a look of wonder in his passion-hazy eyes, drinking her in as if to memorize her, caressing her with a soft, almost worshipping touch.

Earth and water. The angel and the demon. Together, they were complete. Maya didn't care how trite it was, it was the truth: Will made her whole.

Afterwards, Will carried her upstairs to her bedroom, where they made love again before falling asleep. Maya thought she would be too keyed up, too nervous about the next two weeks, to drift off into dreams, but with Will's strong arms wrapped around her, she had slipped off into oblivion almost before she realized her eyes were closed.

She dreamed of Fairyland.

Lorelei was there, and Thomas, and Jericho, on the banks of the magical lake. They were together and happy, so happy. Maya stood at the edge of the woods for a long time, watching them, her heart brimming with love for her family: Lorelei's eyes were clear, as were Jericho's, and for once Thomas was not in charge of looking out for them – he was free to simply love them.

Then Lorelei looked up and spotted her daughter. Maya watched her mother's lovely face break into a wide smile; she jumped to her feet and waved joyously.

_"You're here." _Lorelei's voice, a throaty whisper, reached Maya as if born by a strong wind. _"Maya, you're home."_

_"No, Mom." _Maya shook her head. Behind her, she could feel darkness encroaching, a deep shadow that threatened to blot out the sun. It occurred to her suddenly, with a sharp prick of fear, that if she didn't leave immediately, she would never find her way back home in the dark. _"No, I only came to watch. I have to go back."_

_"We miss you, darling." _This was Thomas, getting to his feet and linking his fingers through his wife's. _"We love you so much."_

_"I know, Daddy." _The shadow lengthened. Maya could see pools of inky blackness gathering around her feet. She thought desperately of Will, asleep back in her bedroom; he would be so worried, so frightened, so alone if she didn't make it back to him. _"I love you, too, but I have to go now. I can't stay."_

_"We understand, Mai Tai." _Jericho walked toward her, smiling back reassuringly at his parents. He was no longer painfully thin, Maya saw with a tremendous sense of relief. He looked strong and healthy, the way she remembered him from their childhood.

_"We'll be right here, waiting, whenever you come back. We won't leave without you."_

_"Leave?" _Maya suddenly realized how insubstantial the world around her appeared, as if the lake, the field and the woods were all a mirage. _"Where would you go?"_

_"To the next place." _Lorelei's voice was a reverent whisper. _"To paradise. But we'll wait for you, sweetie. We'll go together."_

_"Go back now, Maya." _Jericho scowled, looking suddenly frightened, as he took in the shadow swallowing up his sister. _"It's not time yet. Go back to Will."_

Hearing Will's name on her brother's lips gave Maya a painful jolt. She started forward, stretching out her hand, wanting to explain, to apologize for what Will had done – but already the scene was fading, the dream-world tipping sideways, spilling her back out into reality like grains of sand slipping between a child's fingers…

Maya awoke with a start in the steely pre-dawn grayness of her bedroom, her heart hammering in her throat. For a moment, she half-expected to find her parents and her brother standing by the foot of her bed looking down at her.

But the room, of course, was empty.

Completely empty, in fact, Maya realized, her fingers moving across the cool sheets beside her where she had expected to find Will. Sitting up, she pulled the blanket up to her chest and called his name tentatively.

No answer except the echoing stillness.

He was gone. He had left without saying goodbye. That wasn't like Will…

Before Maya could panic, however, she spotted a note folded up on Will's pillow. A soft smile rose to her lips. He would have needed to make an early start, of course; he had a long drive back to Connecticut, and a lot to do once he arrived. He wouldn't have wanted to wake her, knowing how she needed her "beauty sleep," as Maya always called her necessary eight hours. So instead, he had left her a love note.

Maya had never received a love note before. Being a huge fan of Jane Austen romances, she had always longed for one – and now, as he so often did, Will had managed to grant that wish.

Pulling on her robe, Maya padded downstairs and started a pot of coffee before settling in at the kitchen table to read Will's missive. She could hear the words inside her head, spoken softly in Will's low, cultured voice:

_Maya, I'm sorry to leave without saying a proper goodbye, but you look so peaceful right now I can't stand to wake you. If everything goes according to plan, we'll soon be past this time in our lives when we even have to say goodbye._

_You can't imagine how much I needed you last night. I don't think I'll ever understand why you chose me, out of all the men who would have been so lucky to have you, and I know I'll never understand how you can know exactly what to say and do to give me strength when I'm at my weakest. That fortune-teller sure knew what she was talking about when she said that you're home for me._

_The next two weeks are going to be difficult, I know that. Try not to worry. I can't promise everything will work out according to plan, but I can promise that I will do everything within my power to reach you safely. But if I don't, Maya, the last request I will ever make of you is that you get on that boat and get yourself as far away from these people as possible. Take the key with you, in case you ever need to fight back. _

_You'll find a list of numbered accounts hidden in the boat's galley. There's enough money there to keep you safe, no matter how long and how far you have to run. There's also a map hidden there of the route I plan to take. Follow it and you will make it to safety._

_This is all just precaution. You know me – always be prepared. I promise, Maya, I will come back for you. You're the one that I love. Without you, my life isn't worth living. _

_For now, know that I am and always will be, your loving Will_

When she finished reading, Maya pressed the letter to her lips, kissing the paper in the hopes that wherever he was, Will could feel the strength of her love reaching out to him across the miles. Then she folded the paper, took it upstairs, and tucked it inside her music box, running her fingers lovingly over the inscription. She would always treasure Will's words; she would keep the letter to remind her of how much they had overcome in order to be together.

Hard to imagine a time when all of this madness would be nothing more than a memory. When her life in Deer Harbor would be a memory.

Pouring herself a cup of coffee, Maya wandered aimlessly through her childhood home, finally ending up inside her parents' bedroom, where the east-facing windows provided an excellent view of the sunrise over the small lake. Every room in her house held memories for Maya – some good, some bad. Even her parents' bedroom was a mixed bag, for just as she remembered sitting on the bed while her mother gently brushed tangles out of her wet curls when she was a child, Maya also remembered sitting on that same bed bathing her father's forehead while he struggled for breath in his last hours. It was the same for her brother's bedroom; Will had slept there, on sheets that still smelled of him, yet Maya could also recall that bedroom door slamming in anger behind Jericho after one of his innumerable fights with Thomas. Or the living room, where she had as a young girl discovered her mother's lifeless body, but where the night before she had made love to the man she adored.

Houses, like people, were full of memories. Maya had fully expected to live out her life inside her childhood home. After her father's death, she had never seriously entertained the idea of leaving Deer Harbor – those dreams, dreams of college and exotic places and new adventures, seemed to have died along with Thomas. She had accepted long ago that her life would be small and narrow, confined to the walls of this house, the shelves of her bookstore, the streets of her little town. And she had been satisfied with that, or at least not terribly dissatisfied with it, until she met Will.

Maya didn't delude herself that the life of a spy was anything glamorous. She knew, whether he ever opened up to her about his past or not, that Will had been made to do terrible things in the line of duty. Yet knowing him, seeing his fire and his spirit, had awoken in Maya a desire for something _more. _That "more" remained ill-defined to her even now. She wasn't sure if she hungered for excitement; she was fairly certain she wasn't interested in danger. Maybe it was nothing other than realizing that she couldn't have Will and remain in Deer Harbor, living out her days as the well-liked if little-known bookstore owner, but standing there in her parents' room watching the sun come up on a new day, one of her last as a resident of the town where she had spent her entire life, Maya suddenly realized that she was ready to leave, to move on to the next phase of her life. And she had been ready, she believed, for quite some time, because she felt nary a pang for all she was leaving behind.

Who would live in this house after her? Who would take over her father's store? Maya had wondered these things from time to time, yet now that Will had confirmed the date of their departure – two weeks, just two short weeks – she gave free reign to her musings.

When Maya up and disappeared, the bank would eventually foreclose on the house. Maya hoped the new owners of the Sanders homestead would be a family, she decided. A young family, a mother and father and their little children. This house had been an amazing place to grow up: It was old enough to have secret cubby holes and creaky stairs that were perfect for make-believe, and the lake out back would serve as a source of endless entertainment, just like it had for her and Jericho when they were growing up. Of course the little family would know their bad times, too, but the house Thomas Sanders had made into a home for his wife and children was strong enough to weather a lot of storms. Maya had learned that first-hand.

And the store? That would go back to the bank, too – nothing Maya owned was free and clear of debt except for her dad's old Jeep. But foreclosure didn't have to mean the store would close for good. Maya liked to believe some entrepreneur might come along and recognize the potential for a small bookshop to thrive in Deer Harbor, because it pained her to think of "Have Books, Will Travel" being renovated into some cheap diner or shoe store. Or, worse yet, being boarded up and left vacant, like so many of the business along Main Street when their owners finally gave up and sought better opportunities in the big city. She supposed, though, that whatever happened to the store, it had served its purpose in her life: "Have Books, Will Travel" had given Maya an identity when she needed one, when she was lost and alone following her father's death, and it had helped Will find the identity that had allowed him to eventually discover his truest self. If the store closed for good, so be it. Maya would never look back on her time as its proprietor with anything other than fond gratitude.

Several times in the last year, Will had hinted that Maya should keep a bag ready with any small possessions she simply couldn't leave behind when they took the boat moored in the nearby marina. (_Maya, _Will had named the boat, christening it with a bottle of champagne before Maya had cooked them a fancy dinner in the galley; they had eaten on the deck in the soft evening wind, she remembered with a smile, an exceptionally romantic dinner, complete with candlelight and a single red rose from him to her.)

The _Maya _was already stocked with all the food, supplies, and weapons they would need to survive after their getaway, so Maya knew Will had not been referring to necessities when he told her to pack what she "needed." No, he had been thinking of the little things that would remind Maya of her home, her family, her years as Maya Sanders, whom she would have to leave behind for good, like her house and her store.

Inside her favorite messenger bag beside her bed, Maya had for some months kept a glass unicorn from her mother's collection, a drumstick from her brother's old drum set in the garage, and a battered copy of _Alice in Wonderland _that she had given her father when she was a little girl. Leaving her parents' room, Maya went into her own and added one final item to the bag: the music box Will had given her, with his love letter inside.

That was it. The only things she would take with her when they left. But, in reality, those wouldn't be the only things, not by a long shot. Will had said not to look back, and Maya wouldn't; she would look ahead, with Will, to their future, whatever that might hold. Yet in her heart, she would carry this place with her, her home, good and bad together, just like she carried her family with her, deep inside where they would always be safe.

Would anyone come looking for her? Would anyone wonder what had become of Thomas and Lorelei's daughter? Maya had considered the possibility that the authorities might suspect foul play, though she had a feeling Will's employers would use their law enforcement contacts like Harland McCormick to ensure that no full-scale investigation was launched into her disappearance. Margot would probably raise the most fuss; she would probably be the one to haul the sheriff out to the Sanders' house in search of Maya once "Have Books, Will Travel" didn't open for a few days and no one had heard from its owner. While she hated to think of her few friends in town worrying over her, Maya also suspected that they wouldn't worry for long. For one thing, Maya wasn't all that close to anyone, not even Margot whom she truly liked and respected; for another, she suspected her discontent with her circumscribed life in Deer Harbor had been evident to those who knew her best, like Margot, for the last two years, and that no one would find it all that hard to believe that a young woman with no real ties to the community might one day decide to up and vanish, leaving behind her debts, her worries, her past.

Especially since there would be no signs of violence, no evidence of anything untoward happening at the house or her store, Maya hoped Margot and any other concerned parties would soon begin to imagine her on a beach somewhere, starting a new life with a new lover. And, although Maya wasn't foolish enough to believe her life on the run with Will would be idyllic, she was brave enough to foresee herself being satisfied, so long as she was with the man she loved. Thus what her friends imagined would not, Maya believed, be too far from the truth: She would be starting over, and she would be happy.

Maya stretched out on the side of the bed where hours before Will had slept. Turning her face into his pillow, she breathed deeply of his musky scent. She remembered her dream, her family by the water's edge in Fairyland waiting for her, the shadow approaching from behind, threatening to trap her there in that other world, away from Will. She shivered slightly. Was it a portent? Had she foreseen some awful tragedy that would blot out the bright future she believed awaited her and Will?

Two weeks felt like a very long time to Maya, left alone with no way of knowing if Will was safe, with no way of reassuring herself that they would in fact be able to escape. She closed her eyes and gathered her reserves of inner strength for the challenge. Waiting, that was her task now – Will had his job to do, and she had hers, which was to be ready whenever he came back. And if he didn't come back, to fulfill his last request and escape on her own, to make his sacrifice worth it.

Should the worst come, Maya told herself, hugging Will's pillow tightly to her chest, she believed that what her parents and brother had said was true – they would be waiting for her, on the banks of an enchanted river, so they could all enter paradise together. If it didn't, if it all worked out as Will had intended, then she would sail away to a different paradise. Either way, she wouldn't be alone. She would be surrounded by the people she loved.

Whichever way the tide turned, one thing was certain: In two weeks' time, all that would be left of Maya Sanders would be a memory.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23:**

**Tomorrow**

_New York City_

_Twenty-four hours before Drexler bombing_

"I know a garage on Fifty-First that's half the price. I'll meet you guys up in the room."

Sliding behind the wheel of Tyler's SUV, Will headed out into the heavy midday New York traffic before his roommates, standing on the sidewalk in front of the luxurious Worcester Park Hotel, could protest. This was it, the last loose end to clear up: Will needed Tyler's car for his getaway after the bombing, which was scheduled to take place in less than twenty-four hours, so he needed to ensure that the car was within easy reach of the museum.

He had also arranged through Joseph for the SUV to be repainted and fitted with a new license plate and vehicle registration, so that once Tyler Fog became the prime suspect in a terrorist attack on New York City, Will Traveler wouldn't end up getting pulled over in his car.

Negotiating his way through the morning traffic snarl, Will reflected on how surprisingly easy it had been to plan his disappearance. Hometown demanded that their undercover operatives arrange their own outs following a mission; therefore, part of Will's job was to make himself a ghost once the Drexler blew up. Thus he had been able to utilize the full reach of Hometown's resources to affect his escape from the city.

Furthermore, in order to facilitate plausible deniability, the higher-ups in the program, including Joseph, blanched at knowing the details of an operative's out. All they wanted to know was the agent's final destination and expected time of arrival, so they could ensure that the operative didn't seize the opportunity to go rogue.

Will had allowed himself a forty-eight hour window before he would be missed by Hometown at his supposed final destination – Sydney, Australia. Operatives were encouraged to leave the country for a time after completing their missions; in case any evidence of their existence did surface, they were almost impossible for U.S. authorities to track down if they were in another country under another identity.

If all went according to plan – and Will had no reason to suspect that it wouldn't – Hometown would have no idea that Daniel Taft was off the grid until he didn't make his scheduled phone call to Joseph two days after the bombing.

It was, of course, entirely possible that the Partners might start looking for Will immediately once the news broke that Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog were alive, instead of crispy critters inside the museum as intended. But Will meant to make their survival appear accidental if at all possible. Once he had the bomb planted, he had decided to pull the fire alarm, which would hopefully clear the building of more people than just Jay and Tyler – saving as many innocent lives as possible was a priority of Will Traveler's, though it would hardly have been a concern of Daniel Taft's. Will knew Hometown would have someone on the inside of the Drexler investigation (probably that Chambers idiot, from the New York FBI field office, whom Will had met at Joseph's after Darian's death), so they would know right away that the fire alarm had been pulled; given what an excellent job he had done of continuing to feign absolute loyalty, he was hoping that they would give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that someone else had pulled the fire alarm, perhaps panicking once Jay and Tyler took off skating through the museum. Since 9-11, New Yorkers were an understandably nervous bunch about disturbances in public buildings, after all.

And if they didn't trust him? Well, Will would be halfway to Maine by then, and by the time Hometown could mount any kind of actual search for him – and he sincerely doubted Deer Harbor would be the first place they would look anyway, since they didn't know he was in love with his asset – he and Maya would be on their way to tropical waters.

_If I just refuse to accept defeat, I can ensure victory._

Pulling up to an unremarkable mom-and-pop mechanic store several blocks away from the hotel where he and his friends were staying, Will killed the engine and headed inside. The girl behind the counter, a pretty Hispanic teenager with wavy black hair and a winning smile, greeted him with a heavily-accented, "Hola. Can I help you?"

"I'm here to see Carmen."

"I'm Carmen." The girl folded up her fashion magazine and studied Will for a moment. "You must be Daniel."

Will nodded. Joseph had opted to use Will's Hometown identity for this contact; the fewer people who heard the name "Will Traveler" in the next several days, the better.

"Bring the car around back," Carmen instructed, heading toward the employee's entrance to the shop, where the tell-tale sounds of high-powered machinery indicated a thriving business at work. "I'll meet you there."

Twenty minutes later, Carmen had assured Will that the car would be repainted and re-registered and waiting for him on the third row, Red Level E, space nine, of a public garage six blocks from the Drexler museum by nine-thirty the next morning. "Any problems, you call me," she told him seriously, handing him a business card with "Patriot Motors" printed on the front and her cell phone number scrawled on the back. "Any problems at all, you understand?"

Will did: Until he completed this leg of the operation, Carmen had apparently been ordered to act as his asset for anything he might need, well beyond simply revamping Tyler's car for his getaway. Despite her youth, Will got the impression that Carmen would be more than capable of handling any dilemma he threw her way.

He also couldn't help wondering, as he watched her ordering men twice her age about the garage with the easy authority of a much older woman, how similar Carmen's story was to Maya's. Was she, too, just another innocent young woman forced into the Partners' dark world by circumstances beyond her control?

_You can't save everyone, _Will reminded himself, leaving the strong, oily odors of the mechanic shop behind for the summertime scents of New York City – fried dough from street vendors, exhaust from countless cars, fruity perfumes from the sundress-clad female tourists. _Right now, you have to save yourself, and Jay, and Tyler, and Maya._

Strolling back toward the Worcester, Will took stock again of the plan he was to execute in the morning. He was glad of some time alone; he could hardly suppress the cagey excitement that always accompanied the grand finale of a mission. While he welcomed the feeling because it served to sharpen his senses, to keep him highly alert and thereby alive, he also wanted to walk off some of his restlessness before rejoining his roommates. For the next twenty-four hours, Will knew, it was paramount that he do nothing that might upset his roommates' equilibrium, for the biggest challenge of his entire operation still remained: Getting his friends inside the Drexler and skating away from danger by nine-thirty the next morning.

_Hard to believe that by tomorrow at this time, it'll all be over. _

Of course, in some ways, the toughest part of Will's two-year mission would just be beginning as the actual operation ended. He would have to actually climb inside Tyler's remodeled car and drive away from his roommates in the morning, knowing that he was leaving them behind to face a nightmare they couldn't at this moment, no doubt reveling in the luxury of the hotel room Will had booked for them, imagine in their wildest dreams. He would have to walk away, trust them to the hands of fate – and Carlton Fog, who had only three days earlier given Will renewed cause to doubt his dedication to his son's safety.

Three days ago, Will had just been putting the finishing touches on the explosive device when Fog's secure number had popped up on his cell phone. Carefully laying aside the chemicals and wires he had artfully swiped from the chemical engineering lab over the past ten days, Will had attempted to smooth the instant fear out of his voice – he couldn't fathom why Fog would contact him so close to the completion of the mission unless something had gone horribly wrong.

"Hello?"

"Will, nothing's wrong."

Fog had apparently anticipated Will's panic-stricken reaction. Gratefully, Will had sagged against the edge of the desk inside his study carrel – the one in the art library, not the science library, where he did anything pertaining to the mission that he couldn't do in Deer Harbor. That way, nothing could ever be traced back to Will Traveler's actual carrel if it were discovered.

"I know now isn't the opportune time, but I have a proposition for you – one I think you'll be glad to hear, if you'll give me a chance to explain."

Warning bells had sounded inside Will's head. A proposition from Fog? That smacked of trouble, plain and simple.

Nevertheless, Will had felt that he owed it to Fog to hear him out, considering how much the older man had risked by joining forces with him to save Jay and Tyler. "I'm listening," he had replied, his tone perfectly neutral, promising nothing.

"I've done a little digging into what Freed's interest might be in the Drexler Museum," Fog had begun. Will, who had been wondering that same thing, had sat up a little straighter, his curiosity piqued. "Obviously, the Shears Collection has to have played some role in Freed choosing this particular target at this particular time. So I had some of my people look into what paintings our dear old Commander in Chief has lent the museum, and I'm almost positive I know what Freed is so intent on destroying that he would go to such lengths to get rid of it."

Fog had Will's full attention. "Go on," Will had prompted. He had been careful to keep his voice even, not to betray how eager he was to hear this revelation, because whatever Fog revealed didn't necessarily mean that he would be willing to accept his "proposition."

"Are you familiar with the painting _The Declaration of Independence, _by the artist John Trumbull?"

An Edon Academy education had not been for nothing. Will had been rather proud to reply, with the easy self-assurance of a well-cultured man, "Sure. It's from the late eighteenth century. Caused a lot of controversy back then since it's not a faithful depiction of the signing. Today it's looked at less as a historical document and more as a comment on the spirit that went into creating the Declaration."

_Never know when that tenth-grade art appreciation class is gonna come in handy after all…_

"It's also considered by some to represent the creation of the so-called 'Fourth Branch' of the American government," Fog had put in, sounding duly impressed by Will's ready knowledge. "I can't really go into specifics on the phone, even on a secure line, but I have reason to believe that Freed views this painting as dangerous to his plans – the plans that involve framing my son and young Mr. Burchell for an act of terrorism. And I also have reason to believe that Freed is willing to do just about anything to neutralize this threat."

That much was obvious, Will had thought, since Freed was plotting to blow up a New York City landmark and to kill hundreds of American citizens in the process to destroy the painting.

Will also had a sneaking suspicion that he knew where Fog was headed with this.

"That's all very intriguing," Will had countered dryly, "but what does it have to do with me and my mission?"

"If Freed wants that painting destroyed, then it's in my son's best interest, and Jay's, to preserve it," Fog had reasoned. "And unless I'm mistaken, you've been ordered to place the bomb in the wing of the museum where the Shears Collection exhibit is being assembled, so you'll be in a prime position to remove the painting before the explosion."

Will had smirked. "And give it to you, I presume."

"Well," Fog had responded innocently, "I am responsible for seeing to it that my son and Jay are cleared of the charges that will be brought against them. With that painting, I'll certainly have a lot more leverage against Freed and his cronies than I would otherwise."

Will couldn't deny that Fog had a point, yet he also hadn't bought the whole "concerned father" routine then anymore than he had in the past. Still, he hadn't seen any benefit to arguing over Fog's motivations, so he had instead focused on the practical aspects of what he was being asked to do.

"That's what's in it for you, Mr. Fog. Now, how about what's in it for me?"

"I know you care about Tyler and Jay, son. I know you want to help them as much as you can."

_Smooth, _Will had thought, impressed in spite of himself by Fog's ability to manipulate those around him. _But I've already done my part, you slick old bastard, so let's try again._

"You're asking me to change plans I've already laid out very precisely and very carefully, Mr. Fog. That's not easily – or safely – done so close to the end of an operation," Will had reminded his co-conspirator.

It was the truth: Adding a completely new dimension to his mission now – one that involved the rather tricky prospect of stealing a masterpiece work of art from a heavily-secured museum, when his ultimate goal was to secretly plant a bomb that would destroy said museum without drawing attention to his role in the disaster – was not a wise thing to do unless it was absolutely necessary. And much as Will wanted to do all that he could to protect Jay and Tyler, he also hadn't been convinced that Fog would really use the painting to help them. More than likely, he would hold it in reserve to help himself whenever he most needed it in the future.

Will had not been about to risk his life for Carlton Fog's sake. For Jay and Tyler's, in a second. For Maya's, without hesitation. For Kim's or Nell's, absolutely.

For Fog's? No way. Let the greedy bastard find another sucker to jump through his hoops.

Thus when Fog had offered to sweeten the pot by paying Will another one hundred million dollars to steal the painting and to arrange for its delivery into his hands, Will had simply yet firmly declined. The mission was planned, he had told Fog. His out was secured. He had no intention of jeopardizing everything he had worked for by changing up the operation here at the bitter end.

"There's nothing I can say to change your mind?" Fog had asked, sounding disappointed – and perhaps a little surprised that, for once, his machinations had fallen short of their goal.

"No," Will had tabled. Before hanging up, he had added coldly, "And Mr. Fog? If you interfere at the Drexler in anyway, I guarantee you, the only person who will wind up suffering for that decision is you. And possibly your son."

Fog had hung up without another word. Will hoped his message had been taken to heart: Carlton Fog was no idiot; hopefully, he would know better than to test the mettle of a highly-skilled operative who had his entire future riding on the outcome of a mission. Will tried to be confident that Fog would not send anyone else in after the painting – he tried to convince himself that Fog would just have to accept its loss. Difficult as it was for a man like Fog to concede defeat, without Will, surely Fog had to realize that he had no hope of securing that painting.

Since that conversation, however, Will had been increasingly uneasy about the outcome of his operation. Joseph had made clear from moment one on this mission that the Partners were beyond dedicated to its successful completion; although he believed he had given them every reason to have faith in his abilities, Will also knew that for something of such importance, the Partners would be unlikely to take chances. He had been looking over his shoulder more and more the last three days, trying to determine if Hometown had other operatives in play, someone to act as back-up to make sure that the Drexler was destroyed and that neither Jay nor Tyler walked away from the explosion. So far, he hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, but that hadn't totally relieved his anxiety.

Thus Will had opted to add just a little more insurance to his out. Two days ago, under the guise of going out for one last round with his chemical engineering classmates so his roommates wouldn't question where he was off to or when he would return, Will had phoned Joseph to say that he was leaving New Haven for a few hours to work on his departure. Again, until the operation was over, Will knew he couldn't risk trying to sneak away from Hometown's watchful eyes; if they suspected he was trying to hide something from them, well, they might start looking a little too closely at what he'd been up to for the past year and a half. Will wasn't about to make a rookie mistake that would shoot his well-laid plans to hell when he was steps from the finish line.

Joseph had been understanding, as expected – after all, Will was responsible for arranging his own disappearance after the bombing, and it stood to reason that he would need time away from Yale to do so. So forty-eight hours prior to the end of his mission, Will had rented a car at the New Haven airport and had driven north to Newark Airport, where he had left the vehicle in long-term parking. Any Hometown agents who might have been keeping an eye on him (again, Will had seen no signs of surveillance, but he knew that didn't mean he wasn't being watched) would have thought nothing of his activities; installing a backup car at an airport was a very reasonable action for an undercover operative looking to go underground in a hurry to take.

Will had no intentions of driving off in that rental car, however – he would be taking Tyler's SUV directly from New York City to Deer Harbor. No, the car he had left at the Newark Airport was not for his own use. It was for Hometown.

Carlton Fog's request that Will steal the painting the Partners wanted destroyed had started the wheels in Will's remarkable mind turning. It had occurred to him that should his escape be prevented, should he be captured by Hometown, they might believe that he had stolen something for Fog – in fact, Fog might even tell them that, to save his own skin. Since Will did not fancy being slowly tortured to death over a betrayal he had not actually committed, he had decided to plant the rental car at the airport as a place he could direct his interrogators to if it came to that.

And when they opened the trunk? Will smiled darkly to himself, thinking of the wires connecting the trunk's locking mechanism to the explosive device, created from left-over materials he had used while making the bomb for the Drexler. The detonation would only be large enough to be fatal to anyone standing directly over the vehicle when it exploded, but that was perfect for Will's purposes.

_They may take me out. They may make me scream before the end. But I'll be damned if I'm not going to take a few of these bastards down with me if it comes to that._

Somehow, Will had a feeling his father would have approved of that sentiment. Good man though he had been, Michael Davis had also taught his son the importance of fighting to the end, even when victory was no longer possible. If for no other reason than because Freed, Joseph, Fog and quite likely the Partners themselves had been involved in the assassination plot that had robbed Will of his father and his own future, Will was determined not to go quietly into that good night if they caught him.

Will, of course, was praying it would never come to that. Yet he was too pragmatic not to prepare for other possibilities than a happy ending.

As the hotel came into view, Will conceded to himself that as much as he was looking forward to this one last night of fun with his roommates before he said goodbye to them forever, he would be relieved when tomorrow had come and gone, when the mission was over and everyone had survived to tell the tale.

Jay and Tyler were already in the room and drinking champagne when Will arrived. Soon after, dressed to the nines (or as close as Jay and Will, the style-challenged roommates, ever came to being fashionably clad), they walked a few blocks over to an almost painfully-hip bar populated by an incredible array of beautiful people. Other than a near-brawl between Tyler and Jay over a snippy phone call from Kim (who, Will had to admit, was being a bit annoying with all of the "checking in" on her boyfriend), and a pushy red-head who practically stripped Will naked on the dance floor before he managed to disentangle himself from her, the evening proved to be as memorable (and enjoyable) as Will had hoped.

He would miss Jay and Tyler, Will thought every time he looked at them throughout the night. He wished with all of his heart that they were actually just starting out an a cross-country trip that would provide endless fodder for stories to tell the kids and grandkids whenever they all got together over the holidays. In that fantasy, of course, Will was happily married to Maya, Jay to Kim, and Tyler to Nell, and their lives were the definition of the American Dream: affluence, culture, security, health. And the government, far from being some shadowy entity malevolently pulling the strings of their lives, was just another thing to gripe about over morning coffee.

But reality had set in, cold and inescapable. The moment of truth had arrived: It was time for Will Traveler to be revealed for the fiction that he was.

Sometime around dawn, with Tyler passed out on the sofa in their hotel suite and Jay snoring in the second bedroom, Will, lying wide-awake in his own bed, decided to do something he had never done before. It was a risk, yes, yet as the new day rapidly approached, as his hours left to remain Will Traveler swiftly dwindled, he found it was a risk he was willing to take.

So he called Maya.

With the bedroom door shut tightly and the curtains pulled to let in the first red-orange rays of sunrise, Will leaned his forehead against the cool windowpane and stared north, picturing Maya asleep in his Yale tee-shirt.

She answered on the third ring, her voice thick with sleep.

"It's me. I'm okay."

Will spoke softly so as not to disturb his roommates. He had already swept the room for bugs, and Maya checked her phone for taps on a daily basis anymore, so he knew Hometown was not listening to this conversation.

"Will?" He heard covers rustling and imagined her sitting up in bed, pushing her silky blonde hair behind her ears. His longing for her was a palpable, physical ache. "You sure everything's all right? You've never called before."

"I just needed to hear your voice. Sorry to wake you up."

"Yeah, it's really a problem," Maya teased. "I think I'll hang up now and go back to bed."

Will grinned. "I wish I was there with you," he confessed. With his finger, he traced the outline of a heart on the window, drawing a "W" and an "M" inside of it.

Maya sighed dreamily. "I wish you were too, believe me. How are…things?"

"So far, so good." Will had not spoken to Maya since his last conversation with Fog, and while part of him wanted her reassurance that he had done the right thing by refusing, he decided in the end it was best not to worry her. Difficult as the next several hours would be for him, Will knew they would be almost unbearable for Maya, since all she could do was wait.

Wait for him to call. Wait for him to arrive. Wait for him to live.

_At least if anything ever happened to her, I'd never know it – because they'd have to kill me first…_

"I can't talk long. I need to get the boys up here soon so we can get on with it. But I wanted to be sure you're all right."

He heard Maya's smile on the other end of the line. Closing his eyes, Will pictured her beautiful face exactly as he had seen it the last time – in perfect, peaceful repose as she slept, wrapped in the sheets they had so recently made love on.

"I'm fine, Will. I'm worried about you, I miss you, I'm ready for this day to be over with already, but I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me."

"You get the worry for free. Part of the boyfriend package," Will joked.

Maya laughed. The sound warmed his soul, strengthened him from the inside out. "Okay. Well, try not to worry too much. Just take care of yourself, and then hurry on up here, because I am desperate to see you."

"I'm desperate to see you, too."

A glance at the bedside clock told Will that, much as he would have liked to go on talking for hours, he needed to double-check that the explosive was secured in his backpack, contact Carmen to ensure that the car was waiting at the pre-arranged point, and do a dozen other little things to aid in his mission's success before his roommates woke up. Regretfully, he said, "I have to go, sweetheart. You know I love you, right?"

"I know." Maya hesitated, seemingly as reluctant to let him go as he was to say goodbye. "Promise me we're going to be okay, Will."

Will placed his fingertips over the heart he had drawn in the condensation from his breath on the windowpane. Although he knew deep down it might be a promise he couldn't keep, for Maya's sake, for his own sake, he made it anyway.

"I promise."

"I love you, Will."

"I love you, too, Maya. See you soon."

He hung up before she could say goodbye. Somehow, he was convinced that if he never heard her say that word, if he never heard the finality it might carry, then he would be assured of seeing her again. It was impossible, Will decided, to love someone as much as he loved Maya and to never see them again if they hadn't said goodbye.

_If I just refuse to accept defeat, then I have to succeed._

With his wrist, Will smudged out the heart he had drawn. Training dictated that he leave behind no traces of himself in this hotel room – or anywhere else, for that matter.

As the sun burst over the horizon, filling the city skyline with a spectacular palette of color, Will took a moment to appreciate the beauty of endings. His time with Jay and Tyler was over; his tenure as their best friend, their little brother, was at an end. He knew that he had only the vaguest conception of how much his life was about to change. From the moment he disobeyed his first order inside the Drexler, pulling the fire alarm to send his friends to safety, his identity as a Hometown operative would be finished as well; he would be an enemy of the government he had sworn to protect with his very life. From this day forward, quite possibly until the end of his days, he would be on the run, a hunted man.

But even knowing that, even recognizing how difficult the future could prove to be, Will was glad that the day of his departure had come at last. Now Jay and Tyler would be able to move on with their lives, facing the monster in broad daylight instead of being unwittingly stalked from the shadows. He believed in them, in their intelligence and their resiliency; he believed that they would find a way to survive, to show the American people the truth of what had been done to them. In the process, they would probably do what Will could not – slay the monster, kill the dragon. Destroy Hometown and the Partners.

And now Will would be free, too. Free to get on with his life – to start his life, really. When he had left behind his childhood self, he had not really known who he was or who he wanted to be. Now, thanks to Maya, he did know those things, and he found that he was anxious to begin the new journey that would start the instant the path he had been on ran out.

Tomorrow had become today. It was time to complete his mission.

_Ready._

_Set._

_Go. _


	24. Chapter 24

**Epilogue**

_Two days after Drexler bombing_

The young man known as Will Traveler believed in happy endings. He believed that the hero would always save the day, the boy would always win the girl, good would always triumph over evil. And he also believed that the bad guys always got what they deserved.

Which was why he had never really expected a happy ending for himself. For Jay and Tyler, certainly: They faced powerful enemies, but they also had powerful friends, friends who would work tirelessly to clear their names and right the wrong Will had done them. They had truth on their side, after all.

And for Maya, of course: Will wanted to be part of her happy ending, but he had also carefully arranged their out so that if he couldn't be, she could still escape, go build a new life for herself somewhere no one would ever find her.

But for himself, Will had long suspected he would have to pay the price for his sins, for his vengeful desires, his merciless ambition, his blind faith in the Partners. In a way, he supposed, his ending wasn't exactly fair: Simon Davis, Daniel Taft, Isaah Street, J.C. Moore – as these men he had relished his role in Hometown, but as Will Traveler, thanks first to Maya's influence and then to Jay and Tyler's, he had ever been somewhat hesitant about his assignment.

What counted with the Fates, however, was that Will had seen his mission through. He had not been willing to sacrifice his own chance at happiness in order to spare his friends a great deal of hardship, to save them from the dangers they weren't even aware existed. Thus Will had not been surprised when his meticulous plans fell through at the Drexler Museum. He had known the instant he saw the bomb already in place and a second operative waiting for him that his happy ending was not to be.

Will could admit to himself that he had been surprised to learn that the Partners had intended for him to die in the blast alongside his roommates. Once the other operative had told him that all he had been needed for was to get Jay and Tyler inside the museum, Will had realized that his employers knew of his treachery. Ever efficient, they had planned to take care of two problems with one bomb.

Will had done his best to salvage what he could of his original plan, consoling himself as he had snapped the other operative's neck that if he could just get Jay and Tyler clear, he could improvise. So he had pulled the fire alarm and had tried to defuse the bomb to buy them time; then he had seen the Trumbull painting hanging only steps away, the one Carlton Fog had tried to pay him to steal, and the realization had struck him that with the painting, he might have some leverage against the people who wanted him dead. With it, he might even be able to wriggle his way out of Hometown.

Assured that Jay and Tyler were safely out of the building, Will had done what he was trained to do when an operation went south: He had walked away.

But first, he had taken the painting.

Will had headed straight from the burning museum to the public garage where Tyler's newly-retouched SUV waited, just as Carmen had promised. He had hidden the painting underneath the back floorboard and driven out of the city. But he hadn't entirely hit the road, not right away; instead, he had rented a room in a cheap motel and spent the next several hours watching the world go crazy on television.

Will had followed Jay and Tyler's escape on the news, relieved that Fog appeared to have capable operatives in play who were helping his roommates stay one step ahead of the Partners. He had also ignored Maya's repeated attempts to contact him. It tore at Will's heart to think of how she would be suffering, believing him to be dead, yet he knew it was the only way she would ever get on that boat and get herself to safety. If she thought even the remotest possibility existed that he was alive, he knew her well enough to know she would never leave him behind.

Pacing back and forth, back and forth across the motel room, Will had formed a new plan – one that, he hoped, might someday soon reunite him with Maya, and perhaps offer a chance for him to help exonerate Jay and Tyler. He had contacted a local fence he knew who could tell him more about the Trumbull painting; while the dealer didn't have all the answers, he had provided Will with enough information to convince him that the Partners would not want the canvas to fall into their enemies' hands. That, combined with the evidence he had already amassed against them, gave Will hope that, if he was willing to fight for what he loved, he might see his happy ending after all.

With that thought to sustain him, at dawn on the second day after the Drexler bombing, Will checked out of his motel and headed north.

Once he hit the Interstate, the beautiful summer day lifted Will's spirits as New York and Boston fell away behind him and Deer Harbor drew nearer. He thought of Jay and Tyler and hoped they were safe. He wondered if the path he was on now would ever bring him back to them, and if it did, what he would say, how – or if – he would explain what he had done to them. He thought of the painting hidden in the backseat; he wondered what the Partners would be willing to trade for it.

He wondered if he should probe its secrets further or take the leap and make them an offer now.

First things first, Will decided, searching the radio stations until he came across the Cubs game. He would go to Deer Harbor, retrieve the key from Maya's basement, and collect the rest of his evidence from Boston Hall. Once he had everything in front of him, the painting and the receipts and the passports and the canceled checks, then he would decide on his next move.

Mostly, though, as the trees grew denser and the houses grew sparser, Will thought of Maya. He was confident that she could look after herself for the time being; she knew how to handle the boat, she knew how to access the money he had put aside for their escape, she knew where to go to hide and how to stay hidden until the worst of the danger passed. He had trained her well; he had prepared for a scenario such as this, for the possibility that he might not be able to get her out, that she would have to get herself out.

No matter how secure he was in the knowledge that Maya could take care of herself, however, more than anything, Will wanted to be with her. Yet for the time being, he had to content himself with the fact that she was safe – he had to hold onto the hope that someday, if he survived, he would find her, and they would never be apart again.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, at that moment, Will Traveler still believed in happy endings.

So did Maya Sanders. But she knew her story was not going to have one.

As Will entered the city limits of Deer Harbor in Tyler's SUV, Maya was huddled in a corner of her basement, listening to the heavy footsteps and muffled voices above. She was wondering when the man who had called himself Martin would return to finish her off.

She had lied to Will's friends when she told them to go, to leave her, that she would be all right. Maya knew the people Will worked for had no intention of letting her live; they would want answers from her, about Will and Jay and Tyler, but once they had those, they would have no reason to keep her alive.

She had lied to ensure that Will's friends would have a chance to escape. She believed that was what Will would have wanted – for his death and her own not to be in vain, because they had protected the two truly innocent people caught up in this nightmare.

When Will had not shown up as scheduled on the afternoon of the bombing, Maya had feared the worst. She had attempted every means of contacting him that she knew of at least twice, to no avail. And then her fear had given way to desolation as the truth sunk in.

Will was dead.

He would never have abandoned her otherwise. He would have moved heaven and earth to get to her side.

Maya had cried that night until her eyes were swollen shut and her throat was raw from sobbing. She had lain on the bed in Jericho's room, the bed where Will had slept so many nights; she hadn't been able to sleep in her own bed, the place she and Will had made love so many times. She would never be able to sleep there alone again, she thought – the memories were too tangible, too haunting, too bittersweet.

Needing to feel close to Will, she had taken his shirts out of the closet and buried herself beneath them on the bed, swimming in his scent, drowning in his memory. For one night, Maya had lost herself in grief.

But when the sun came up on a new day, she had pulled herself together and prepared to do as Will had instructed her: Get herself out.

Only, the accounts he had set up for them showed a zero balance when she checked them online. And when she had driven to the marina, she had seen two men in a red pick-up watching the boat through binoculars. It was at that point when Maya had realized she was trapped. Will's death had been no accident, no mistake; the people he worked for had found out about his betrayal, and they were now cleaning up the mess, tying up the loose ends.

Like her.

Maya had driven back home, dropped her suitcase off, and gone to work. For two days she had continued with life as if everything was normal, despite her grief and terror. She simply hadn't known what else to do.

From the moment Jay Burchell had walked into her store that morning, however, Maya had known the end was near. Will had once told her that she would be safe so long as she remained predictable, so long as she provided no threat to his employers; Maya knew she wouldn't be considered "predictable" after the two most-wanted fugitives in the country turned up on her doorstep asking for information about her lover. Whatever chance she had stood of survival had evaporated like a puff of smoke the instant Jay had asked her if she knew Will Traveler.

Now, curled up in a ball on her basement floor, her nose bleeding and her cheek stinging from the first round of questioning, Maya thought to herself that this was the only way it all ever could have ended for her. She had signed her life away five years ago in a foolish, desperate attempt to save herself. She hadn't fully appreciated the consequences of her actions then, but she certainly did now.

Whatever happened to her, Maya didn't blame Will. He had tried to rescue her, tried to sail her away from this madness, tried to secure a happy ending for them both. This was not Will's fault. He wasn't innocent, by any means – but neither was she, not completely.

Facing death, Maya discovered a clarity regarding her situation that she had never been able to attain before. What she saw was that falling in love with Will and planning to run off with him were not the real reasons she had become a threat to his employers. The truth was, Maya had always been a threat to them, whether they had known it or not, because she never would have stood silently by while they tore her country and hundreds of innocent lives apart.

If these mysterious people who had high-jacked her life five years ago had sent anyone besides Will to her, Maya understood suddenly, she would never have gone along with a plot to frame innocent people, not for a minute. Her love for Will had been so strong, so sudden, that she had convinced herself he wouldn't really do something so horrible. As their relationship had intensified, she had been increasingly certain that, in the end, Will would do the right thing. And he had tried to – she loved him so much for that, for the risks he had taken in the face of insurmountable odds.

Yet she understood now that if Will had insisted on following his orders, on killing Jay and Tyler or even leaving them to twist in the wind with no hope of being exonerated, she would have refused to help him. In fact, she would have done her best to stop him, regardless of how much she loved him.

These people, whoever they were, had trapped her. But they had not stolen her soul.

Knowing that, Maya felt renewed strength and courage surge through her. She sat up, wiping blood from her nose and pushing her hair out of her eyes. She was sure the interrogation would resume soon; this man, this Martin, seemed persuaded that she didn't know where Jay and Tyler were going, but she knew he would have questions about Will, about their plans to escape.

Will had instructed her to answer honestly if she were ever subjected to interrogation by his employers. Maya doubted she could withstand torture anyway; the very idea of it turned her insides to jelly. She would do as Will had said, she decided, scooting up against the wall and drawing her knees to her chest. She would cooperate. She wouldn't hand these people reasons to hurt her. By now, Jay and Tyler should have had time to get a safe distance away, and Will – her sweet, beautiful, precious Will – was already dead.

Maya had no one left to protect.

Drawing on those reserves of inner strength she had come to pride herself on, Maya heard Will's voice echo in her mind, felt the memory of his love stir in her the courage to face what came next with calm resolve.

Blue-green eyes fiery with passion, Will reaching for her in the dark…

_Ready… _

Calloused hands surprisingly gentle, Will folding her fingers in his…

_Set…_

Arms open to embrace her, Will waiting on the sun-drenched beach of Fairyland…

_Go…_

Overhead, footsteps moved toward the basement door. A tremor of fear moved through her, but Maya simply closed her eyes and sent up a prayer for Jay and Tyler, asking the angels to protect them, asking that they would be allowed to survive, to find a way to defeat these monstrous people who had ruined so many bright futures. Then she focused again on her memory of Will's handsome face and told herself to be strong through what was coming, because she would be with him soon, in a place without pain or fear. In a place where she would see her parents and her brother again, where she would introduce them all to the love of her life, where she would never suffer being separated from any of them again.

In death, Maya believed, they would all find peace together. She would have her happy ending – only, in the next life, not this one.

The door opened. They were coming for her.

Maya was ready.

**The End**

_**Author's Note: **__Thank you to my dedicated reviewers, you know who you are! I very much enjoyed writing this piece and hope you'll review to let me know your thoughts on it._


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